A monstrous tooth that washed up on a South Carolina beach last month has led to public speculation of whether it once belonged to an ancient sea creature.
Missy Tracewell said she found the enormous tooth while walking along Hunting Island a day before Halloween, reports said.
The shark-like tooth — about the size of a person’s palm — appears perfectly preserved, although darkened and fossilized by the elements.
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Tracewell said she found the artifact buried in puddled sand only foosteps from the shoreline.
“It’s beautiful,” Tracewell told The State.
“I pick it up, and I stand up, and I’m so shocked that I have it in my hand ... that I dropped it on the sand,” she said. “I’m screaming, and I’m just like a 5-year-old, jumping up and down and I was crying, ‘I cannot believe this. Oh my God I just found a megalodon tooth.’”
She posted a photo of the oddity on Facebook, and social media users wasted no time guessing the beast it came from.
Other voices also suggested the tooth may have belonged to a megalodon, a behemoth shark species that went extinct millions of years ago, although Tracewell said she had yet to meet with an scientific expert to identify the source of the tooth.
“I would hate to meet face to face the mouth that it came out of. It had to be a big shark,” one Facebook user wrote.
Some megalodon teeth have been discovered that are much larger than the one Tracewell found, according to researchers.
“Man I’m SO jealous!! I’m here at hunting Island right now and I’ve found about 48 smaller teeth so far but I’ve never found any that big. I’m so so so jealous,” another replied.
Scientists say megalodon teeth are commonly found on beaches in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Mexico.
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