Woman Finds Enormous Tooth of Prehistoric Megalodon Ancestor

A pair of fossil hunters in British Columbia, Canada, have stumbled across a tooth believed to belong to the ancient ancestor of one of the largest marine predators to have ever existed: the megalodon.

Rachel Shill Cook and her step-daughter, Addison Shill, were hiking along the Nechako River, west of Prince George, hunting for crystals on April 11 when they made the discovery.

"It was a new area to us so we were taking our time looking at the ground," Cook told Newsweek.

It was then that Cook noticed something unusual. "I saw what I thought could be an agate in the wet ground near the water," she said. "It was only about a third exposed at the time. I had to scoop it out with my fingers to get the entire tooth out of the ground."

The tooth was very old and about half the size of her palm. "I thought right away that it looked similar to a shark's tooth, but was confused because it was quite a large size," Cook said.

Cook shared photos of her find to social media, posting to The Fossil Forum on Facebook on April 16. "The response was overwhelming," she said. "I've had dozens of people contact me to tell me I had found a megalodon tooth. Pretty exciting stuff!"

The megalodon, scientifically known as Otodus megalodon, is a prehistoric predator that is thought to have roamed the seas at least 20 million years ago. The enormous sharks are estimated to have grown to lengths of up to 65 feet, and their teeth are often the size of a human hand.

These enormous predators dominated the oceans for millions of years, until their extinction just 3.6 million years ago, according to London's Natural History Museum.

After Cook shared photos of her find to The Fossil Forum, many users commented identifying it as an Otodus obliquus tooth, the oldest definitive ancestor of the megalodon.

Otodus obliquus is thought to have lived roughly 55 million years ago, and grew to lengths of about 33 feet, which is still roughly double the length of a great white shark. However, teeth from these species are most commonly found in Morocco, and many users are stumped as to how this tooth ended up so far North.

"The most common answers have been that it may have been left behind by early humans or that it had been placed there by glacier displacement," Cook said. "I'm fascinated that it became a fossil and then went on a journey to end up in my home over an eon. It's an amazing thought."

Cook has loved hunting for rocks and fossils her entire adult life. "However [the tooth] got here, I was so happy to find it," she said. "I have found lots of treasures over the years but nothing that was so obviously a fossil."