A 9-year-old girl from Maryland finds a “once in a lifetime” megalodon tooth

A young, aspiring paleontologist discovered the treasure of a lifetime on Christmas morning: a massive,

5-inch megalodon tooth.

Molly Sampson, a fourth-grader from Prince Frederick, Maryland, made the incredible discovery on Calvert Beach.

Molly, who spoke with us, said her father’s interest in fossils inspired her to spend years searching Maryland

beaches for shark teeth.

“They’re just cool because they’re extremely old,” she explained.

Molly’s mother, Alicia Sampson, continued, “My daughter has always had a passion for exploring the outdoors.”

“She enjoys discovering hidden gems,” she explained.

According to Alicia Sampson, Calvert Cliffs State Park in Maryland is well known for being a hotspot for fossil hunting.

Molly asked her parents for cold-water waders for Christmas so she could go fossil-hunting for shark teeth and

other artifacts in the Chesapeake Bay. She set out with her new equipment at 9:30 a.m. to look for the remains

of extinct carnivores.

“I noticed something large that resembled a shark tooth,” she explained. We were about knee-deep underwater.

She went on to say that she tried to grab the teeth with a sifting tool, but it was too large. “I felt ecstatic and startled,

” she said when she realized how big the tooth was.

When the Sampsons brought their fascinating find to the Calvert Marine Museum, paleontology curator Stephen

Godfrey confirmed their suspicions: it was a megalodon tooth, one of the enormous sharks that lived over 23

million years ago.

According to Godfrey, who spoke with us, only about five or six megalodon teeth the size of Molly are found along

the Calvert Cliffs each year.

Some people can spend their entire lives looking for a tooth the size Molly discovered.

When the Sampsons brought their fascinating find to the Calvert Marine Museum, paleontology curator Stephen

Godfrey confirmed their suspicions: it was the tooth of a megalodon, one of the enormous sharks that lived over 23 million years ago.

Each year, only about five or six megalodon teeth the size of Molly are discovered along the Calvert Cliffs,

according to Godfrey, who spoke with us.

Some people can spend their entire lives searching for a tooth the size of Molly’s.

According to the size of the tooth, this particular megalodon was 45 to 50 feet long.

Godfrey explained that whales and dolphins would have lived in the waters off Calvert Cliffs millions of years ago,

providing megalodons with an abundant supply of food. Shark teeth are “by far the most abundant vertebrate fossil”

because sharks replace their teeth throughout their lives and the teeth are made of tough enamel.

Megalodons are particularly fascinating to people because, according to him, they were the “apex predator on Earth”

for millions of years.

Molly’s discovery, Godfrey and Alicia Sampson hope, will inspire other children, particularly girls, to pursue their

scientific interests.

“This will inspire people of all ages, including children,” Godfrey says, “to pursue their natural inclination in nature,

art, music, or any of the other possibilities that are currently available to us.”

According to Alicia Sampson, children from all over the world have written to Molly to express their delight at her discovery.

She set up an Instagram account to document her daughters’ outdoor adventures.

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