Rain and high tides in the southeastern US have led to the unearthing of some long-buried marine fossils, specifically massive shark teeth that once belonged to an 18-metre-long megalodon.
"Oh my God, like I said, I felt like I was a lottery winner or something," Denny Bland, who found a massive fossilised tooth on a beach in North Carolina, told a local news station.
Several large Megalodon teeth have been found along the beaches of North Carolina in recent months.Credit: Holly Ridge - Surf City Online Gazette
"It's like I'm the first one to touch that since it fell out of his mouth back in the day."
Cynthia Crane, director of the nearby Aurora Fossils Museum, identified the find as belonging to the colossal prehistoric fish, an ancestor of the modern-day great white shark.
The probaable size range of the megalodon next to a whale shark, a great white and a human.Credit: Matt Martyniuk / CC
"Megalodon was this large, humungous shark that roamed the ancient seaways during the Miocene-Pliocene time — mainly mid Miocene to Pliocene — which was about 15 million to 5 million years ago," Ms Crane told the station.
The beast's size was estimated by extrapolating from the length of one of the teeth, which is more than 15 centimetres long.
North Topsail Beach in North Carolina is known to be a good spot to find relics from extinct marine life like the megalodon, although rain and tides from Hurricane Joaquin has brought them ashore in record numbers since October.
Fairfax Media