Shark Tooth Island

01/09/2025

08/24/2019

This is a great photo showing the difference in size of the Megalodon shark and a great white. Megalodon was up to 60 feet and extinct millions of years ago, we think, some divers found a tooth that was carbon dated at about 10,000 years ago, so they may have survived longer than we knew.

08/09/2019

Giant Great White Caught in Mexico
Two commercial fishermen were working in the Sea of Cortez off the Northwestern Mexico coast when they were surprised by their nightly catch. They had put their nets in the evening before and when they went back to check, it was heavier than usual and they thought they had a large catch of smaller fish.
Surprise, surprise, they had netted a huge great white shark. They were very shocked at what was in the net. The shark measured almost 20 feet, actually, 19.8 feet long and approximate the weight to be about 2000 pounds. The great white was already dead. This could be one of the largest great whites recorded.

Huge Great White Shark Caught in Mexico
They didn’t really know what to do with the shark so they had to drag it behind their boat for almost 2 miles and it took them about a hour to complete their trip back to shore. The boat they were in was only 22 feet long with a 75 horsepower outboard motor. After they got to shore it took almost 50 people to help drag the great white shark to the sand.

Great White Shark on the Beach
They don’t know what the fishermen did with the shark, but some scientist were hoping to get some samples from the shark.
Shark experts said that it is not unusual to have great whites in the area and they also believe that the Gulf of Mexico is an area where the great whites have nurseries.
As much as I hate to see a great white shark killed, this was an obvious accident. The great white was probably looking for breakfast and wound up in the net. Of course, sharks cannot live if they can’t move forward because they breathe through their gills. So the poor shark probably suffocated.
Well, I guess you never know what you are going to get when you go out for your day of fishing. But you better watch out!
Happy Hunting!

08/09/2019

Watch Out for that Bull Shark!
While I was walking on the beach yesterday hunting for shark teeth, shells, and other unusual sea life that may have washed ashore, I came across a dead dolphin that looked fairly young. It had a large bite mark on it’s side and looked very much like a bite from a bull shark. It was rounded and not pointy like a tiger shark. It reminded me that the ocean should be respected and we have large sharks off of our coast.
Bull sharks like to hang around in shallow coastal waters that are warm and because we have coquina rock formations on our coast, it is ripe for fish and sharks to hang around.
The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) is a requiem shark and the teeth can be confused with dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus) and small black tip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) because of being in the family. They have serrated edges on the upper and lower teeth which are broad and triangular on the upper jaw and narrow and triangular on the lower jaw.
The bull shark is called many names depending on where they are found. They are also known as Zimbezi or Zambi in Africa and the Nicaraqua shark in Nicaraqua .
The bull sharks is one of the most aggressive toward humans because of it’s territory of shallow warm salt or fresh water. They have been known to travel in places like the Ohio River in Indiana and the Mississippi in Illinois. They are found in lakes and streams in salt and freshwater as long as the water is deep enough. They were spotted in the Brisbane River in Australia and were seen swimming in the flooded streets after the floods and the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011.
Back in 1916, it was thought that bull sharks had attacked in the Jersey Shore because of the fresh brackish water and the bite is very similar to the great white. Because of this attack, it inspired the author Peter Benchley to write his book “Jaws”.
We have had some bays and rivers here in Florida that have been invaded by bull sharks and swimming has been banned in these areas.
The name Carcharhinus is from the Greek word Karcharos which means sharpen or Rhino nose. It gets the name bull shark because it is a stout shark and it is aggressive by reputation. It does have a blunt round snout.
The bull shark is found worldwide mostly in tropical and subtropical coastal waters and rivers and lakes. It is one of the few sharks found in fresh water and can spend fairly long periods of time in these waters, primarily for breeding purposes and the mouth of estuaries and rivers and shallow waters make perfect areas for nurseries. They can give live birth to babies from 4 to 10 at a time and it takes about 10 years for them to mature.
The bull shark usually averages about 7.3 to 7.8 feet in length for males and the females can reach lengths up to 11.5 feet but one of the largest recorded was 13 feet caught in a river in S. Africa. The females are larger than the males.
Their diet can consist of boney fish and other small sharks, mullet, tarpon, catfish, gar, snook, jacks, mackerel, snappers and other schooling fish and stingrays, dolphins, turtles and birds. They can seem to be traveling slowly along the bottom but can have bursts of speed up to 11 mph to catch prey. Their bite force has been measured up to 1250 pounds. They usually hunt by themselves but sometimes can be hunting in pairs.
Adult bull sharks have few enemies with humans being their greatest threat and they could be attacked by larger great white and tiger sharks and saltwater crocodiles have been recorded as attacking them but smaller pups can be prey for tiger sharks, sandbar sharks and other bull sharks. They are very territorial and will attack animals that enter their territory. Bull sharks along with great white sharks and tiger sharks are the most dangerous to humans.
I have many teeth that I have found here in Florida as well and they are fossilized and probably date here from the Miocene era which was about 5 to 24.5 million years ago. It is amazing after all this time that that serrated edge still exists.
Happy Hunting! Diane

Bull Shark

08/09/2019

Great White Sharks To Be Hunted
I recently read an article that is really disturbing to me personally because of the decision by the Australian authorities to begin hunting of the great white shark.
Australia had 5 shark attacks last year in an area on the Western Indian Ocean coastline. According to past records, there have only been 12 attacks in the past 100 years. As a result they have decided after over a decade of protection of the great white shark, that they should go out and pre-emptively hunt and kill them if they seem to be a threat to the swimmers.
The authorities have decided to put the lives of swimmers ahead of the life of an endangered shark. According to the West Australian State Premier, Colin Barrett “This is, after all, a fish -let’s keep it in perspective.”
Even though the shark is in it’s own habitat, they want to kill them to prevent swimmers from being injured or killed. I have very mixed feelings about this. Great White sharks do not intentionally attack humans. They feel movement and kicking and are not sure what the prey is. When they bite, their eyes are closed. They are curious and take a sample bite to see what it is and then release their victim. They don’t eat the people or hunt them. They are more than likely looking for seals, or turtles or other fish to eat. The fact that the shark is so large that some of the attacks are more severe than others.

I watched a video last year regarding a shark attack and the swimmer was all by themselves quite a way out into the ocean and with almost no one around in the beach area. Australia is the home to over 100 breeds of shark. The bull and great white shark are considered some of the most aggressive sharks, but they generally live in waters that are far away from most beaches. Knowing that these large great white sharks swim in your waters, would you go swimming? I think I would find the beaches that are not in their habitat.
Great white sharks usually prefer colder and temperate waters which are located in southern Australia, and bull and tiger sharks are more likely to be in the tropical waters in the northern areas.
Australia’s plan will allow them to catch and kill sharks that are close to beach goers, whereas their previous laws only allowed for killing if the shark had actually attacked a swimmer.
They are planning on purchasing more jet skis for surf life savers and try to fund more helicopters to do beach patrols.
Here in Florida, our life guards keep an eye out for shark sightings and alert swimmers to keep them out of the water or make them aware they are there. After all, the ocean is the home of the sharks and we are invading their territory. We don’t have the great white in our waters as much as Australia because that is where they are usually more congregated for breeding. But we do have bull and tiger sharks that are just as dangerous. We are, after all, considered the Shark Bite Capital here in the area. We don’t have the deadly attacks they can have in other areas, but more frequent attacks resulting in smaller wounds generally by surfers who are farther out in the ocean. But we have had our share of attacks this summer as well. We just don’t go out and kill the sharks.
The great white shark has been declining for years because of hunting in the past for their jaws and being caught in nets. These huge sharks are still much of a mystery regarding their breeding habits and they are listed as an endangered species.
I am disappointed that these amazing sharks will be killed just for swimming in the ocean. I feel the Australian government should make designated areas and make sure swimmers are in safe areas. One of the attacks last year, a man refused to come in when cautioned by authorities. He was later bitten. And the shark should be punished? We need to take responsibility for our own safety by not invading their territory then turning around and blaming the poor shark.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2012 at 12:02 pm Filed under News and tagged endangered, great white shark. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.

One Response to “Great White Sharks To Be Hunted”
1. Chris Howe Says:
November 18th, 2012 at 3:19 am e
I’m not happy about this either, but just so you know who to direct protests to, the Australian Commonwealth government is not proposing to remove protection of white sharks. The Western Australian state government is considering removing protection. WA is one of the states in the Australian Commonwealth.
Attacks have gone up but there are a number of possible reasons – more people in the water because of higher population, effects of fishing on normal prey stocks so they come in close more often, perhaps more whites because they are protected.

09/26/2018

Teeth from the extinct Otodus Obliquus, the Giant Mackeral Shark

06/13/2016

The Giant Extinct Megalodon Shark
The history of the Megalodon shark has been confusing. I was first interested in this shark with my first find on the beaches in Florida. I had been on a hunt to find teeth and my first tooth found at one of our beaches was a megalodon tooth about 3″ long and had a broken root. The beach normally would not produce these large teeth, but because of a pipeline dredged off of the coast was done, the sand they dug off of the ocean bottom was dumped onto the beach to restore dunes and as a result many wonderful fossils have been found.
I was not completely educated on these teeth, but had heard that large teeth could be found on this beach. I knew I was on the right beach when I did find that tooth. In my last post I described my largest find on that beach.
It became a fascination because they are rare and just fabulous when you can hold it in your hand and know that is has been around for about 1.67 to 28 millions years.
These giant predators were one of the largest during the Oligocene to Pliocene age to roam our ancient oceans. They primarily ate giant squid, whales and dugongs.
Scientist have argued over time about the lineage of this giant white shark. There have been two schools of thought, one being they were related to the great white shark, Carcharodon and the other that they were related to the giant mackerel shark, Carcharocles genus.
Most experts now believe they were related to Carcharocles, or otodus obliques, a giant mackerel shark.
The megalodon averaged a length of about 42 feet, but could reach lengths up to 6 feet. The teeth are very large with the largest being about 7 inches long. The jaw span was large enough that a small compact car could have fit inside.
I have seen a replica jaw at the Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida that was built by a dentist in Jacksonville from teeth he found in the mouth of the St. Johns River in Mayport, Florida. It is quite amazing that anything that large used to swim in our oceans.
Most of the teeth I have found are large and heavy. My largest is 5 1/2 inches and weighs 3/4 of a pound. It has serrations that are very sharp and is a very triangular shaped tooth. Even over time the serrations seem to always be present.
The jaw had 5 rows of teeth with a total of 276 razor sharp teeth. Sharks loose teeth when feeding or fighting and the extra rows fill in as a result. This shark mostly roamed warmer waters, but has been found to have existed worldwide.
There usually are no other shark fossils found because their skeletons are made up of cartilage, not bone. On occasion some shark vertebrate are found.
Most photos of this large shark are produced from taking measurements of teeth and putting the body shape similar to the great white and producing an artists rendering to see what this monster shark may have looked like millions of years ago.
We don’t really know what catastrophic event may have killed off this giant shark, but we can enjoy the wonderful fossils that have been found of this shark that mark it’s existence.
Visit my site at sharktoothisland.com and see some of these fossilized shark teeth that are available.
Have a great hunting experience!
Diane

This entry was posted on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 10:54 am
Looking below the meglodon tooth is the one in the middle with the black below the cusp. It was the 1st meg I ever found.

10/02/2015

10/02/2015

A Look At Some Shark Teeth
I thought it would be fun to show you some of my shark tooth collection that has taken about 30 years to collect. I actually have many cans, jars, trays and other containers housing some of my shark teeth scattered around my home.
So one day while I was out shopping for a new couch, I came across a coffee table that was set up as a display case. It was all white wicker with a glass top. Under the glass top was a green felt lined drawer only about 3 inches deep along with an extra drawer in the bottom for other storage. As soon as I saw this table, I knew it would be perfect to display my most precious shark teeth. So forget the couch for now, I came home that day with this wonderful table.
Before that the teeth were scattered in multiple locations and I had a small display tray that a friend had made me in which I had a lot of teeth displayed on top of each other because there wasn’t enough room. So this would be great to separate out my best teeth in order to see them better. Also, I could put like teeth together for different species of sharks. The shape of teeth changes depending on the breed of shark.
I was so excited about my new find and had to go around and get all of the teeth I had and decide which ones to display. Of course, my best find was my 5 1/2″ megalodon I found in the middle of a northeaster in Fernandina Beach. So it had to be in the middle and from there I had to work out around that tooth with similar teeth. It was a fun project and am now happy to have them in some kind of order and they are protected from the elements as well.
The extra teeth that would not fit are in other displays. For instance, I have two small jars of teeth I call small and miniscule. I really don’t even know how I saw these on the beach, but for some reason they jump out at me when I am looking. My friends call me a shark tooth magnet. Anyway, these teeth are so small they probably are not any bigger that 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch in size. My picture shows a perfect fossilized great white tooth next to a ruler with the small teeth next to it for comparison.

You can also see how polished the small teeth are. Our beach has a lot of rocks that the shells and fossils tumble around every day so as a result they are shiny. They are also very colorful because the coquina rocks we have tend to be orange in color and the teeth pick up the color of the sediment they rest in. And as you can see, they are very small compared to the great white. On the great white shark tooth you can clearly see the serrations on the side. To me it is amazing that they have stood the test of time. This great white could be anywhere from 10 to 20 million years old.
The next picture I have is a closer look at the tooth of the giant megalodon shark with surrounding teeth of many sharks. They are mostly more megs, great whites, mako’s, tigers, and snaggles.


There are also cow shark teeth, mouth plates and pieces of fossilized turtle shell, sea shells, some sand shark teeth and only a few white shark teeth. The cow shark teeth are on either side of the largest megalodon tooth. They are small with a small looking series of small teeth together but actually it is one tooth. There are two on the right side and one on the left side of the megalodon tooth. The more colorful teeth were found on my beach, the large mostly gray teeth were found in Fernandina.
You can see all of the megalodons in the center with the black section below the cusp of the tooth. I found all of these that day on the beach in the northeaster. The largest tooth in the middle weighs 3/4′s of a pound. The cusp is broken because of the dredging that was done to refurbish the beach.
Unfortunately, I cannot get the whole tray in the picture or the teeth would be too small to see. You get an idea of my collection and see some of the differences in shapes of teeth. So what started out as finding a tooth here and there later turned into an obsession with finding the big one. I finally found the tooth I was looking for and all it took was a walk on the beach to start my hobby.
Until next time, keep up the hunting! Diane

04/21/2013

Effective today, my website will no longer be available. If anyone is interested in any fossils or shark teeth you can still call my number listed above and I can arrange for purchase and shipments. Thanks for your support for the past two years. Diane

11/02/2012

It's going to be holiday shopping time real soon so Shark Tooth Island will be doing free shipping on orders over $50.00 in the continental US. Check out the site. Good place to buy when you want to get something special for that friend or family member. Fossils and fossil jewelry can be really exciting! Visit www.sharktoothisland.com.

10/03/2012

I just wrote a new blog about Great White Sharks. Check it out at www.sharktoothisland.storeblogs.com

Welcome to my StoreBlogs business blog!