Weird looking shark tooth found at Westmoreland, VA

[WestMTeeth]

[fossilcrazee]

You're correct - that is pretty weird looking.  The shape is clearly Otodus megalodon.  But the surface texture, uniformity of color, depth of the crease between the enamel and the root and the absence of a clearly defined chevron is odd.  I am most interested to hear the views of the experts. 

 

[Al Dente]

Looks like someone's art project.

[Fossildude19]

Cropped, brightened, and rotated. 

 

 

 

 

 

Can we get a picture of the other side? 

 

[Thecosmilia Trichitoma]

Someone made this out of clay. Not a real Meg. There is no difference in texture between the root and the blade, and the marks on the tooth are clearly fake.

[Auspex]

My first gut impression was of a badly-worn, gigantic, Hemipristis serra. Once I recovered from the shock of it's 'weirdness', however, and looked more closely, it appears to be a fabrication.

As already noted, it consists of an homogeneous material, which does look artificial to me.

[FossilDAWG]

Seems like a strange thing to do: make a fake Meg out of clay, fire it to harden it, then plant it at a site where it would possibly be mistaken for a real fossil.  Stranger things have happened I guess, but someone has a bizarre sense of humor if that is what happened.

 

Don

[digit]

I've heard stories of some joker who made a mold of a big 7" meg tooth and reproduced many many copies in concrete which were painted black and tossed out around the much visited bone bed offshore Venice, FL. I think they were initialed or somehow marked so that the ruse would not go too far. I guess the (momentary) thrill of finding a lunker tooth was supposed to offset the let down from this practical joke.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Northern Neck]

He needed a better dentist back then... Neat find.  Definitely Meg I would assume. Seems like the outta enamel on the tooth either was damaged when it was living or rotted away some.  Neat find whether it's fake or not hahaa

Edited April 3, 2021 by Northern Neck
Typo

[ClearLake]

On 4/1/2021 at 11:40 AM, FossilDAWG said:

Seems like a strange thing to do: make a fake Meg out of clay,

I thought so too, until I realized it was posted on April 1. 

[PrehistoricWonders]

I’m pretty sure it’s a messed up prank. I’ve seen some posts that people did the same, but with like 5” fakes. It’s pretty messed up, but I guess some people find it funny.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Familyroadtrip

[val horn]

Hey wisdom tooth,  what do you say,  was this a prank or were you punked by someone else?

[Boesse]

Someone has done this at Myrtle Beach and made apparently a bunch of similar looking fake meg teeth out of clay and we've seen two of those be found by confused collectors in the past year or so.

[digit]

That explains it then. It looked off enough to be an oddly confusing relic. Interesting piece of "art" for the collecting shelf--a conversation piece at least.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[jonnyquest]

April fools....  Lol