Enamel from a mega-shark 2 times the measurement of a Excellent White identified in Australia

Fossil fanatic Philip Mullaly was going for walks together the seaside in Victoria Australia when he noticed it: a glint in a boulder with quarter of a tooth uncovered.

‘I was right away enthusiastic, it was just ideal and I realized it was an crucial uncover that essential to be shared with men and women,’ Mullaly discussed.

He experienced identified a fossilised shark tooth. And not a normal shark tooth, a mega-shark tooth, 2 times the measurement of a Excellent White tooth at seven centimetres (two.seven inches) extended. On nearer inspection there was a entire established of these gigantic mega-shark tooth.

The tooth belonged to the Excellent Jagged Slender-Toothed Shark (Carcharocles angustidens), a kind of shark that roamed oceans close to Australia 25 million several years in the past. 

Significantly like its tooth, the Excellent Jagged Slender-Toothed Shark grew to 2 times the measurement of a Excellent White Shark, possibly 9 metres extended. 

The discovery of a total established of fossilised shark tooth like this is a uncover of worldwide importance.

‘[T]hey signify a single of just 3 linked groupings of Carcharocles angustidens teeth in the globe, and the extremely 1st established to at any time be uncovered in Australia,’ mentioned Erich Fitzgerald, senior curator of vertebrate palaeontology at Museums Victoria. The tooth are now housed in that museum.

The Excellent Jagged Slender-Toothed Shark lived throughout the Oligocene ephoch and was a best predator. They preyed on and ate modest whales.

They ate whales.

Whales.

The tooth are on screen at Melbourne Museum as portion of Nationwide Science 7 days beginning from Thursday nine August.