Heartbreak Hemis, and then…

[bthemoose]

I had Friday off and decided to head out to Matoaka Beach to do some shark tooth hunting along the Calvert Cliffs.

 

 

I arrived bright and early and soon came across a decent-sized Hemi. Unfortunately, it was incomplete: missing one side of the root, some serrations, and part of the blade. 

 

 

That turned out to be the theme of the morning as I continued to find several other partial Hemis on the beach. When I finally found a complete tooth, it was in the 0.5- to 0.75-inch range, which is typically the size I find here. While I’ve found several tantalizing bits of larger Hemis at Matoaka, the largest complete tooth was under an inch.

 

 

Still, finding even smaller and broken teeth is fun, and I had the beach mostly to myself with favorable tides. So, I kept going.

 

And then, in a few inches of water, I saw what looked like a tooth. I definitely haven’t mastered the art of spotting submerged shark teeth. I’m used to my underwater “finds” being shells, rocks, leaves, twigs, and chunks of clay. But I reached down anyway. And I pulled up what is by far the largest Hemi I’ve found to date, measuring 1.28 inches along the slant and 1.22 inches wide—a complete and beautiful tooth!

 

 

After a long day of fossil hunting, I had a few other nice finds too, but the Hemi was my trip maker. On my way out, I found one last broken tooth, which would have been a real monster, possibly in the 1.5-inch range. Maybe next time, I’ll find one of those intact too!

 

[hokietech96]

Very nice hemi!  Congrats!

[Praefectus]

Beautiful tooth!

[PrehistoricWonders]

Sounds like a great trip, even if you only found partials, it’s still better than not fossil hunting, great tooth, my brother got lucky enough to find a massive hemi ~1.5-1.8!

[Ludwigia]

Nice one!

[bthemoose]

4 hours ago, hokietech96 said:

Very nice hemi!  Congrats!

 

4 hours ago, Praefectus said:

Beautiful tooth!

 

2 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Nice one!

 

Thank you!

 

4 hours ago, Familyroadtrip said:

Sounds like a great trip, even if you only found partials, it’s still better than not fossil hunting, great tooth, my brother got lucky enough to find a massive hemi ~1.5-1.8!

 

Totally agreed--a day spent shark tooth hunting is always a good day! Do you have a picture of your brother's Hemi?

[PrehistoricWonders]

I have a group picture of our best hemis, but not a pic of just the big one, here’s the group, our favorites are the big orange one, the biggest one, and the smaller orange one! Also if anyone could confirm for me that the one in the second picture is a patho, that would be GREATLY appreciated!!!!!

[bthemoose]

1 hour ago, Familyroadtrip said:

I have a group picture of our best hemis, but not a pic of just the big one, here’s the group, our favorites are the big orange one, the biggest one, and the smaller orange one! Also if anyone could confirm for me that the one in the second picture is a patho, that would be GREATLY appreciated!!!!!

Nice finds. The dark tooth in the upper left is the 1.5+" one, right? Imagine how big that one would have been with the tip intact!

 

As for your pathological tooth, I'm not sure, but the wavy blade is similar to this Hemi I found a few weeks ago that I've also assumed is pathological. This one's about 0.6" long.

 

[PrehistoricWonders]

Yeah, I can’t imagine it with the extra ~.2-.3 of an inch, yours definitely looks pathological, I think mine’s a patho, but I feel like there’s a slight chance the it’s got weird wear on the serrations, and not a patho.