If you’re lucky enough, your Christmas wishes can come true. And for one tiny adventurer who had had a dream bigger than most, all it took was a little dip in the water.
We often think of “Jaws” when we think of massive sharks, but in reality those sharks are small in comparison with the megalodon. It is considered the biggest shark to have ever existed. It was also one of the largest fish in the world. The megalodon died out more than 3.5 million years ago. Named megalodon which is Greek for ‘big tooth’, the shark often grew to be more than 66 feet long.
A size comparison of the megalodon to a great white shark and a human. Photo courtesy of blog.padi.com.
But for 9-year-old Molly Sampson, finding the mega-shark’s big tooth was her goal for Christmas Day.
And her determination led to what a museum curator called a “once-in-a-lifetime kind of find.”
Alicia Sampson, Molly’s mom, said that the girl, along with her older sister, Natalie, wanted to “go shark’s tooth hunting like professionals.” Both girls had asked for insulated chest waders as gifts. And once they had opened them, they asked to go and try them out.
According to CBS News, the family headed to Calvert Cliffs in Maryland. Sampson said her husband, Bruce, had been searching for fossils there since he was a child. Molly has gathered more than 400 smaller shark teeth, but had never managed to snag the prize of a massive tooth, she said.
The tooth Molly found was 5 inches long, bigger than her hand, Sampson said.
“She told me she was wading in knee deep water when she saw it and dove in to get it,” Sampson said. “She said she got her arms all wet, but it was so worth it.”
According to Molly, she enjoys fossil-hunting because “they’re just cool because they’re really old.”
Nine-year-old Molly Sampson made a rare find of a megalodon tooth on Christmas Day. Photo by Alicia Sampson.
“She has always wanted to find a ‘Meg’, but for whatever reason, she spoke it into existence on Christmas morning,” her mother said.
I saw something big, and it looked like a shark tooth,” Molly said.
“We were about knee-deep in the water.” She said she was “amazed” when she realized how big the tooth was. “I was so excited and surprised.”
The tooth was taken to the Calvert Marine Museum. The paleontology department congratulated the “future paleontologist.”
Godfrey said that when megalodons were alive, the waters off Calvert Cliffs would have been home to whales and dolphins that would have kept the megalodons fed. Sharks replace their teeth over the course of their lives, he said, and are made of a hard enamel so they are “by far the most abundant vertebrate fossil.”
“People should not get the impression that teeth like this one are common along Calvert Cliffs,” Stephen Godfrey, the museum’s curator of paleontology, said. “There are people that can spend a lifetime and not find a tooth the size Molly found,” he said.
“My husband is going to build a shadow box for her so she can display it safely,” said her mother. “I am sure she will always keep this tooth. To her, and to us, it is priceless. The joy and excitement it has brought her could never be bought.”
