JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Rob Strott wasn’t even on the beach when he found a rare tooth from a megalodon, a type of extinct shark that lived at least 3½ million years ago. He was at work handling construction dumpsters at Atlantic Disposal.
“We were just dropping our dumpsters down and to drop the dumpster you have to disconnect the cable and as I was down there disconnecting the cable I saw on the ground sitting right there looking at me, brush it off and realized, wow, that’s a sharks tooth,” Strott said.
In the last month, Strott found two sharks’ teeth in the rocks they get from a quarry in Hastings.
This one was much bigger than the first.
The megalodon with a tooth that size could be bigger than the bins they use to carry the dumpsters.
“I’d like to not think about what this thing looked like,” said Strott.
“The fact that it came from a quarry almost 20 miles west of here, clearly, there is a lot of history to this,” he said. “I did a little research and sure enough yeah it was a megalodon tooth.”
He and co-workers have also found whale bones, sponges and seashells in the rocks. He said they keep their eyes open for more sharks’ teeth.
“There’s some layers to it, so you could dig down and see what’s really down there,” Strott said.
Megalodon teeth can sell for $50 to $425, depending on size and quality. Strott said a diver friend of his said the tooth he found is worth more than $300.