See the Gargantuan Megalodon Tooth This Man Found Off the Florida Coast

The captain of a fossil charter boat has found something spectacular off the coast of Florida. He’s called Michael Nastasio and he was diving off the coast of Venice when he made this amazing discovery. It is a Megalodon tooth – larger than his hand! The tooth is over 6 inches long and was found in an area of the Gulf of Mexico that is well known for shark teeth on the sea bed. It’s obvious how excited he is in this clip and he’s looking forward to cleaning up the find so that he can get a better look. Scroll down to see the full footage of this extraordinary fossil!

What Is a Megalodon?

The megalodon was the largest shark to ever exist! Their scientific name is Otodus megalodon and they are a member of the otodontidae family. We can only estimate their size and weight but experts think that they were over 50 feet long and weighed over 100,000 pounds. This makes them a lot bigger than any other shark that we know about and 100 times bigger than a great white shark.

They lived in coastal waters all over the world during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs so some of them are 20 million years old. However, they continued to exist for 13 million years and did not become extinct until 3.6 million years ago. It is thought that they lived in sub-tropical and temperate climates.

Why Do We Find Only Megalodon Teeth?

You’d think that because megalodons were so huge, we would be finding their bones at the bottom of the sea all the time. However, sharks have skeletons made of cartilage and they only very rarely form fossils. Therefore, the best record we have of all of these awesome creatures is their fossilized teeth!

The teeth can reach more than 6 inches in length but the exact shape and size of their body are more difficult to into determined. They are discovered off every continent except Antarctica. The teeth have serrated edges for shearing flesh.

Megalodons were apex predators and experts think that they fed on baleen whales, sea turtles, and even other sharks. Such a large animal would need a lot of food – probably 2,500 pounds of food every day! These guys were at the top of the food chain and probably did not have any predators.

We don’t know exactly why they became extinct. There are several theories including climate change and a supernova event!

See the Incredible Clip Below

The photo featured at the top of this post is © estt/ via Getty Images