Most spring breakers leave the Gulf Coast with nothing but sunburn and a jar of sand. Not Aiden Andrews. He’s heading home to Wyoming with something a little more extraordinary: a fossilized Megalodon tooth, six inches long and millions of years old.
Aiden stumbled upon this prehistoric prize during a family vacation. He wasn’t hunting for fossils, just scuba diving off Manasota Key, now famous as the “Shark Tooth Capital of the World.” He remembers spotting something dark and triangular just poking up from the sand. At first, he thought it was driftwood. But he pulled it out, and, well, the thing filled his palm.
The Megalodon, Otodus megalodon, ruled the seas until about 3.6 million years ago and remains the largest shark ever known. Experts say a six-inch tooth like the one Aiden found probably came from a shark that stretched somewhere between 50 and 60 feet. That’s about the size of a city bus, only with more teeth…