Overview
- The Bowers family of Monongahela, Pennsylvania found the large fossil while searching a Sea Isle City jetty and retrieved it on Tuesday during their vacation.
- Experts at the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center and the New Jersey State Museum examined the specimen and confirmed it is a megalodon tooth.
- Museum officials said megalodon teeth are uncommon in New Jersey and that only a handful of documented finds exist in the state.
- Researchers and the center’s director say the tooth was probably dredged from offshore sediments and pumped onto the beach during a July Army Corps sand‑replenishment operation.
- The family plans to keep the tooth as a souvenir and experts note the find links to broader paleontology: megalodons went extinct about 3.6 million years ago and their large teeth help scientists estimate the shark’s size and bite force.