Pennsylvania Boy Holidaying on a New Jersey Beach Just Pulled a Prehistoric Treasure That Experts Say Shouldn’t Even Be There
‘Mega rare.’
A Pennsylvania boy just pulled a prehistoric treasure from a New Jersey beach that has experts scratching their heads. According to LADBible, 11-year-old Bo Bowers was shelling with his family in Sea Isle City last week when he reached into a tight gap between rocks and pulled out a massive megalodon tooth, a find so rare and well-preserved that scientists say it shouldn’t even be there.
The tooth, which measures roughly the length of Bo’s hand, belongs to the Otodus megalodon, a colossal shark that went extinct around 2.5 million years ago. The Bowers family took their discovery to the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Centre, where experts called it a “mega rare” and “once in a lifetime beach find.” The center even shared a photo of the tooth on Facebook, highlighting just how intact and impressive it is.
Mike Bowers, Bo’s dad, told WGAL8 that when he first spotted something unusual in the rocks, he couldn’t fit his hand in to grab it. “I looked down and I was just astonished, but I couldn’t fit my hand in there,” he said. That’s when he called Bo over, whose smaller hands were perfect for the job.
Bo admitted he was a little nervous at first
“I was just really excited at first. I was scared to put my hand down to, like, see it,” he said. But once he pulled the tooth free, the excitement took over. The family later stopped at the New Jersey State Museum on their way home, where an official confirmed the tooth was indeed from a megalodon. Even more surprising, the museum told them only five megalodon teeth had ever been recorded as found on New Jersey beaches – making Bo’s discovery the sixth.
Megalodon teeth aren’t completely unheard of, but finding one this big and this well-preserved in New Jersey is practically unheard of. Sharks shed thousands of teeth in their lifetimes, which is why fossils turn up all over the world. But most megalodon teeth found in the U.S. come from coastal waters in the Southeast, not the Northeast.
According to Fox News, Dana Ehret, a paleontologist at the New Jersey State Museum, said that megalodon teeth are “highly uncommon” in New Jersey because the state doesn’t have the right geological conditions to preserve them near the surface. “The Bowers tooth is in extraordinary good condition for a tooth from New Jersey,” Ehret said.
“It reminds me of the teeth found in North Carolina, where they are much more common.” Most teeth found in New Jersey are worn down from years of tumbling in the water, but Bo’s find looks like it could’ve come straight from the shark’s mouth.
The megalodon itself was a true ocean giant
Weighing as much as 30 great white sharks and stretching up to 60 feet long, it ruled the seas from about 17 million years ago until its extinction. The only marine animal to ever outweigh it is the blue whale. To put its appetite into perspective, paleontologists estimate a megalodon needed to eat about 2,500 pounds of food a day – that’s roughly the equivalent of 3,300 cans of tuna. With a diet like that, it’s no wonder these sharks had so many teeth to spare.
Bo’s discovery is part of a recent trend of kids stumbling upon ancient fossils in unexpected places. Earlier this year, an 11-year-old boy in England found a 1.8 million-year-old tooth from an extinct relative of modern elephants while visiting a beach. There’s something about kids and their sharp eyes that seems to make them natural fossil hunters.
Mike Bowers told Fox News Digital about Bo’s interests in looking for similar fossils. “He likes to look for shark teeth and stuff like that,” Mike said. He went on to add, “We definitely did not expect to find something of that stature.”
The family was allowed to keep the tooth since it was found on a public beach, and Bo has no plans to part with it. “I was just really excited,” he said when asked about the discovery. Given how rare and well-preserved this tooth is, it’s easy to see why. For an 11-year-old, pulling a piece of prehistoric history out of the sand is the kind of vacation story that’ll last a lifetime.
(Featured image: jenniferforjoy)
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