Fossil hunters spend years and years discovering rare and ancient things of significance. However, a 9-year-old girl in the US couldn't believe her luck when she found an enormous 5-inch megalodon tooth on a beach. The girl named Molly Sampson had been out searching for fossils along Calvert Beach on Christmas morning when she made the discovery, Newsweek reported.
The tooth belongs to the now-extinct Otodus megalodon shark species, as per BBC. A local marine museum's curator called it a "once-in-a-lifetime kind of find".
In a Facebook post, the girl's mother, Alicia Sampson, said that Molly and her sister Natalie Sampson wanted to "go sharks tooth hunting like experts" and had asked for insulated chest waders as a Christmas present. As soon as they finished their breakfast, they headed to the beach with their father Bruce Sampson. Molly was wading in knee-deep water and searching the sand when she spotted the huge tooth. The tooth Molly discovered was 5 inches long and the size of her hand.
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The family took the tooth to the Calvert Marine Museum, which confirmed the fossil's identity and shared pictures of the exciting find on Facebook.
The post was captioned as, ''Future palaeontologist, Molly, was out searching for fossils on Christmas morning when, what to her wondering eyes appeared...but a huge Megalodon tooth! Molly was excited to share her awesome find with our paleontology department last week at the museum!''
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According to Newsweek, Otodus megalodon was a giant shark species thought to have evolved around 20 million years ago. They swam in oceans until they died out at least 3.5 million years ago. The species was not only the largest shark in the world but also one of the largest fish ever to exist, growing to a length of more than 66 feet.
