South Carolina couple discovers giant megaldon shark tooth in a muddy river bed

A South Carolina couple made a surprising discovery while exploring the Stono River outside of Charleston – they found a prehistoric megalodon shark tooth larger than a human hand.

Jessica Rose-Standafer Owens and her husband, Simon Chandley Owens, were walking along a muddy riverbed when they spotted a pointy gray structure poking out of the ground that she was sure was a ‘shark tooth.’

‘If it’s a tooth, it’s going to be like biggest one we have ever found,’ Jessica said during the video, while brushing away mud to reveal it was in fact a tooth.

The couple said the tooth is 5.75 inches from the tip to the root, weighs just under a pound and is three to five millions years old.

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The couple posted a video highlighting the discovery on Facebook, where you can hear them both gasping with excitement when they saw the tooth laying in the mud.

‘I am literally about to cry,’ Jessica said holding the ancient tooth in her hands.

‘If I never find another shark tooth, I will be just fine! And we may have just been a tad bit excited when we found it lmao,’ she shared on her Facebook page.

The Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston had this to say about the couple’s find: ‘That’s a great meg find – finds like that are why Charleston is known as the megalodon capital of the world!’

‘Well done, we can tell you were excited! As for an age, it’s likely weathered out of the Goose Creek Limestone, so Pliocene in age (~3-5 million years old)’

Both Jessica and Simon were searching the river bed for shark teeth for 10 minutes before making the surprising discovery.

Megalodon is the largest shark species that ever lived, growing to 60 feet long, three times the size of the largest of today’s great whites. 

And the earliest megalodon fossils date to 20 million years ago.

South Carolina is home to millions of fossils, which attracts tourists from all over in search of the hidden treasures.

The first fossil found in the US was discovered in 1725 on a plantation when slaves dug up a tooth from a Columbian mammoth, which is now South Carolina’s official state fossil.

In 2018, John Taylor claimed to have found an entire woolly mammoth skeleton in a river near Beaufort – but has refused to disclose where the remains are hidden.

However, scientists were skeptical as complete mammoth skeleton were very rarely found and question whether it was another animal or just fragments of a mammoth.

If Taylor was right about his find it would be of huge scientific interest, especially if it was killed by humans and showed people were in the area at the same time.

Only scattered bones and teeth of the hairy, giant elephants that went extinct 10,000 years ago have so far been found in the state.