In this Monday, June 30, 2014, paleontologist James Walker holds a megalodon shark tooth found at the Calaveras Dam replacement project in Fremont, Calif. (AP Photo/ Bay Area News Group, Aric Crabb)
In recent days, beachgoers in North Topsail Beach and Surf City in North Carolina have been stumbling upon some rare teeth—some the size of an adult hand—which belonged to a supersized prehistoric shark called a megalodon.
Aurora Fossil Museum experts say Hurricane Joaquin likely dredged up the previously undisturbed fossils, and rain and high tides have helped bring them to the shores of an area already known as a popular spot for gigantic megalodon teeth, reports Australia's News Network.
"I felt like I was a lottery winner or something," one beachgoer tells WITN. "It’s like I’m the first one to touch that since it fell out of his mouth back in the day." By looking at the ratio of today's shark's teeth to body size, experts suspect that one inch of tooth corresponds to 10 feet of body length, meaning a 6-inch tooth may have belonged to a 60-foot super shark, which is roughly the size of a school bus.
These unusually large teeth have been discovered in record numbers this October. (Check out which ocean creature got really big when megalodon died out 2.6 million years ago.)
This article originally appeared on Newser: NC Beach Awash in Teeth From Bus-Sized Shark
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