Hemel Hempstead boy finds megalodon shark tooth at Walton-on-the-Naze

1 year ago 18

Ben with the 10cm-long (4in) bony helium recovered astatine Walton-on-the-Naze successful Essex

By Kate Scotter

BBC News, Essex

A 13-year-old lad has recovered a shark bony believed to person belonged to a elephantine prehistoric creature.

Ben discovered the 10cm-long (4in) bony astatine Walton-on-the-Naze successful Essex during a summertime vacation play break.

The teenager's dad, Jason, said his lad was "over the moon" with the find and knew the 2nd helium saw it "it was something".

Essex Wildlife Trust said it was a megalodon bony and intact ones, similar the 1 found, were a "rare find".

Jason and his lad were connected a play interruption from their location successful Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire particularly to spell searching for fossils.

They arrived connected Friday evening and by Sunday greeting had already clocked up 16 miles (26km) of walking on the coast.

Image caption,

Essex Wildlife Trust said the bony recovered by Ben was a megalodon

They were up astatine the ace of dawn connected Sunday and were down astatine the formation archetypal happening erstwhile Ben recovered the elephantine bony nether rocks astatine astir 07:00 BST.

Jason, 50, said: "We could conscionable spot the borderline of it, sticking out, and Ben knew straightaway it was thing and pulled it retired of the sand."

The brace took their find to Essex Wildlife Trust's Discovery Centre astatine Walton-on-the-Naze wherever they were told it was a megalodon tooth.

Jason said helium and his lad spell to Walton-on-the-Naze to spell fossil hunting erstwhile a twelvemonth and besides to the Jurassic Coast, a 95-mile (153km) agelong long of coastline successful confederate England.

He said Ben wants to beryllium a palaeontologist erstwhile helium is older and the elephantine bony was a "great addition" to his collection.

Essex Wildlife Trust said the bony would beryllium from 20 cardinal years aged to 3.6 million.

It said respective had been recovered astatine The Naze but much commonly they were fragments of the teeth.

The megalodon

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Megalodon was a elephantine and dwarfed each different oversea creatures

The cartilaginous food (whose skeleton is made of cartilage alternatively than bone) was a carnivore and had nary known predators

It could devour thing it liked, but its favourite nutrient was whales, though seals would besides person been connected the menu
Most of this shark's hunting was successful the unfastened oversea (juveniles lived person to shore) and it attacked its prey adjacent the surface, erstwhile it came up for air
Megalodon could aquatics astatine precocious velocity successful abbreviated bursts truthful tended to unreserved its prey from beneath
It would archetypal purpose to disable its prey by injuring a flipper oregon the tail, past erstwhile incapable to aquatics properly, the unfortunate would beryllium easier to decorativeness off
Lived from astir 20 cardinal years ago, agelong aft the dinosaurs became extinct 65 cardinal years ago

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