Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 3: Finding Shark Teeth on the Beach
• Part 2 of 3: Identifying Shark Species
• Part 3 of 3: Determining the Age of Shark Teeth

It is always pleasant to rest on the seaside. But your vacation can be even more memorable if you manage to find a shark's tooth on the beach. Chances are, you want to know how to increase your chances of such a find. And if you've already found a tooth, you might be wondering what kind of shark it belonged to or how old it was. Fortunately, there are good ways to help you in this matter.

Steps

Part 1 of 3: Finding Shark Teeth on the Beach

1. 1 Look for teeth on a splash line or water line. Come to the beach at low tide and look for a strip of material washed ashore by the waves. Walk slowly along this wave splash line looking for shark teeth.If there are a lot of people on the beach, it is better to look directly at the water's edge, that is, in the place where the waves break on the shore - this way you can find the tooth earlier than others.
   • From time to time, rip up the sand along the line of the wave splash or water's edge and look for teeth in it. Although teeth can be found on the surface, they are often found in the thickness of the sand.
2. 2 Sift through shells and sand to find shark teeth. If there are a lot of shells in the places you are looking for, you can collect a large pile of them and then sort them. Collect seashells and dig up some sand. Then put the seashells and sand in a sieve and shake it. Then take the remaining objects in the sieve one at a time to see if it is a tooth, a shell, or something else.
   • While you can find a tooth in parts of the beach that don't have shells or other material thrown away by the sea, you will have a better chance of getting lucky when looking in areas where the waves of sea life are concentrated.
3. 3 Look for dark, triangular objects. Although shark teeth are slightly different from one another, the teeth you find on the beach are likely to be black or some close dark shade. They are also likely to be small, 1 to 5 cm long, and triangular in shape. Focus your attention on objects with these physical characteristics as you search in the sand with your eyes or sift through shells.
4. 4 Identify your teeth by their glossy sheen. Shark teeth and seashells sometimes look very similar. If you have picked up some object and cannot understand what it is, look at it in the sun. The surface of most shells is ribbed and slightly shimmers in the sun, while almost all shark's teeth shine glossy in its rays.

Part 2 of 3: Identifying Shark Species

1. 1 Define the white shark's teeth by their wide, triangular shape. If the shark tooth you find is flat and in the shape of a wide triangle, you may be holding a great white shark tooth. In this case, the blade of the tooth should be covered with large serrations, and the tooth itself should be approximately 4–6 cm long. Htm / ref>
2. 2 Identify the teeth of the tiger shark by the short blade. The blades of a tiger shark's teeth are approximately equal in length to their roots. They can also be identified by the sharp, deep jagged edges of the blades. The teeth of a tiger shark are usually about 2.5 cm long, but sometimes they can reach 4-5 cm.
3. 3 Identify the teeth of the bull shark by the tapered notches. The blades of the bull shark's teeth are flat and wide with a narrow tip. They are usually about 2.5 cm long or slightly shorter. The entire blade of the tooth is covered with jagged edges that get smaller as you move down the blade.
4. 4 Identify the lemon shark's teeth by the slightly angled blade. The lemon shark's teeth are jagged and the blades are slightly angled. In addition, the teeth of the lemon shark are flat and narrow. The average tooth length of a lemon shark is about 2 cm.
5. 5 Identify the teeth of the tiger sand shark by their small width. The teeth of the tiger sand shark have extremely narrow, jagged blades and are usually about 2.5 cm long, making them relatively easy to identify. They also have very sharp tips.
6. 6 Identify the megalodon teeth by their large size. Megalodon is a shark species that went extinct thousands of years ago. It is known for its enormous size. You can easily identify his teeth by their size - they are much larger than the teeth of other sharks, usually 9 to 18 cm. You can also identify them by the finely serrated blades and the thin black line between the blade and the root of the tooth.
7. 7 Identify the teeth of other sharks by shape and size. The teeth of different shark species usually differ from each other in these characteristics. Generally, the shape of the tooth is the best identifying feature, as most species have a unique angle of attachment of the blade, shape of the tip, or features of the notches on the blade by which they can be identified.If, based on the analysis of these signs, you decide that a tooth can belong to one of two possible types, measure its length and see which type it is more appropriate.
   • For example, the teeth of a giant hammerhead shark are distinguished by a unique square root and uniformly sized notches from the top to the bottom of the blade.

Part 3 of 3: Determining the Age of Shark Teeth

1. 1 Identify fossilized teeth by their dark color. Shark teeth contain oxygen, which can react with the surrounding minerals to create compounds of different colors. Fossilized teeth have oxidized for at least ten thousand years, so they are often black, crimson, dark brown, dark gray, or other similar dark colors. The exact shade depends on the conditions in which the tooth is petrified, as different sediments contain minerals that give different colors when oxidized.
   • Shark teeth from places where iron oxide is present are usually colored orange or red.
   • Shark teeth from phosphate-rich areas are usually black, as phosphates are black in color.
2. 2 Identify modern teeth by lighter shade. Modern teeth have not yet had time to lie for ten thousand years among various minerals in sedimentary deposits, so they are not oxidized. These teeth are usually white and usually look much the same as in a shark's mouth.
3. 3 Identify a species and see if it is extinct. Try to determine the approximate age of a tooth by examining its structure and determining what kind of shark it belonged to. Most often, shark teeth are found that belong to existing species, such as the tiger shark or the great white shark, but you may also come across a tooth from an extinct species. If you notice that the anatomy of a tooth matches one of the extinct species, this tooth is extremely old.
   • Megalolamna paradoxodon is one of the extinct shark species, whose tooth you can find ..
4. 4 Recognize a tooth found offshore as old. While you can undoubtedly find a fossilized shark tooth on the beach, modern teeth are often found in such places as well. But if you find a tooth at a considerable distance from the sea, chances are high that it is very old, because it takes a long time for the tooth to get so far from the ocean.
   • For example, if you find a shark tooth in a stream 80 km from the nearest sea coast, it is most likely a fossil tooth.