Collecting shark teeth is a great, easy & fun activity while being on the beach – actually not only for kids, but for grown-ups too!
In order to find shark teeth on the beach, look out for dark triangular shapes in the areas with lots of shells. Shark teeth can be mostly found in the section of the beach where the waves crash onto the shore.
In fact, fossilized shark teeth can also be found in other places like riverbeds or ponds, but the likelihood to find them is the greatest on beaches, so we are going to focus on finding shark teeth on beaches.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to find shark teeth on the beach!
1. Learn about shark teeth
Finding shark teeth isn’t as easy as you might think. This is why it’s important to learn about them beforehand. Here are some useful information about shark teeth! Btw: It’s always best to learn more about certain topics beforehand. Here are the best sustainability books!
Sharks are magnificent underwater creatures that have fascinated mankind for ages. Most sharks have four rows of teeth, and they lose some of them every day. When the missing teeth are covered in silt and buried at the ocean’s bottom, they eventually start to fossilize. The original tooth material is gradually replaced by the minerals in the sediment. Since this procedure takes thousands of years to complete, it is little surprise that so many folks like collecting shark teeth.
The majority of sharks have teeth that are between half an inch and over six inches long. Rarer discoveries, like a tooth from an ancient Megladon, are almost 7 inches long. An average great white shark tooth measures around 3 inches.
The shark teeth we are discovering and gathering on the beach are magnificent, glossy black or brown fossilized teeth of their prehistoric predecessors rather than the shining white teeth you would take from a current living shark. Most of these teeth date back at least 10,000 years and have gotten harder over time. Overall, there hasn’t been much of a shift in shark teeth throughout time, and there aren’t many changes across different geological ages, periods, or species. Fun fact: There are over 500 species of sharks, of which 143 are under threat of extinction as they are critically endangered. Because of this, determining the age of the teeth without knowing where they were discovered is difficult.
Fun fact: For some reason many people believe that sharks don’t have brains. But they are wrong! Sharks, just like other fish, have brains.
2. Choose a good location to find shark teeth
After doing a bit of research about sharks and their fascinating teeth, it’s now time to get active and decide where to go to find shark teeth.
Actually, shark teeth cannot exclusively be found on the beach. Since the ocean used to be further inland, you can also find larger & older teeth buried deep in the soil, especially along creek beds. But since this requires more technical knowledge and equipment, we’re going to focus on how to find shark teeth on the beach in this article.
In general, it doesn’t take much to find shark teeth on the beach as any beach with patches of shell debris are good for searching. If you look carefully enough, you can find shark teeth on almost any beach worldwide.
Some people say there is a higher chance to find shark teeth in shark-populated areas, but that’s not really true. Don’t fall for this misconception! It’s not true because most of the teeth that can be found on the beach are from sharks that used to live hundrets or even thousands of years ago. Many things have changed over this long period of time and so did the habitats of sharks. In the US, Venice Beach is most-famous for having lots of shark teeth (it is referred to as the “shark tooth capital of the world”) as it positioned above a deep fossil layer.
When searching for shark teeth on the beach, make sure to focus on the shoreline, especially the area with broken shells, jellyfish, drift wood and trash. If shells and other debris are there, then shark teeth will surely be there too.
Even though you can find shark teeth on any beach, the following environmental features seem to attract shark teeth like a magnet:
- Points (areas where the beach projects out into the water)
- River mouths (areas where rivers flow out into the sea)
- Jetties (long rock walls that project out into the ocean)
- Harder packed sand
Furthermore, asking locals is a great way to get some indiser information about where is a good place to find shark teeth. You can improve your chances of finding teeth right away if you find someone that can point you in the right direction.
With a little patience and focus, you could be lucky enough to uncover teeth from white sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks, lemon sharks, and, if you’re one of the very lucky ones, perhaps even a sizable prehistoric Megalodon tooth.
3. Go at the right time to find shark teeth
Essentially any time there is movement on the ocean floor is a good time to find shark teeth. This can be after a storm or while there is dredging going on nearby. That way, movements on the ocean floor will reveal fresh layers of sand, potentially uncovering some shark teeth too. If you enter the beach after a storm, just make sure it’s safe to go.
Furthermore, your chances of finding shark teeth increase at low tide when you have the maximum amount of beach to explore. Sandbars and tidepools at low tide are also a great place to look because the water is constantly moving there.
Finally, the best time to find shark teeth is in the morning, when there are fewer people in the water. The calmer waters will make it easier to see any shark teeth. Weekdays are usually a less popular beach time, so go then if possible to avoid the crowds. Though, as the sun tends to stand rather low in the morning, make sure that it’s in your back, so that you can properly see what you are searching for.
Bonus tip: Go when the surfers are out, as they have a special sense for knowing when the swell is up (big swell causes more movement on the ocean floor)!
Nevertheless, because of the sheer quantity of shark teeth out there, any time will work to uncover these priceless creations of nature.
4. How to find shark teeth on the beach
When you are the right place at the right time, your search for shark teeth can begin.
Know how shark teeth look like
Shark teeth have a pointy top and a thin body. Most teeth along the beach or shoreline are 1/8″ to 3/4″ but you can often locate larger teeth further out in the ocean. Some teeth look like a black triangle without a top, some are more Y-shaped. Identification can sometimes be difficult because the tooth characteristics can change depending on the location of the tooth in the jaw, and the age or sex of the shark.
Look for the color black
Shark teeth preserved in fossil form frequently have a black color. These are the ones that you will most likely encounter on the beach. Younger shark teeth can also be gray or brown, but these are seldom seen near the beach and are typically white on the tooth and the root.
Scan along the shore and in the shallow waters
Shark teeth are frequently visible on top of the loose sediment. Though, it could be challenging to find them among the stones and shells. You might not find anything if you only search the sand’s surface, so in case your search isn’t going as successful as hoped you can scoop up some sand near the water’s edge to increase your chances of finding shark teeth on the beach.
5. Identify the shark teeth you found
After your successful search, you can try to identify which type of shark(s) the teeth that you found once belonged to. There are two good places we can recommend for shark teeth identification. The first is a more technical description from the University of Florida Museum. The second is a visual guide from ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research to help you identify teeth.
Searching the shorelines for the little black triangles and attempting to determine what kind of shark they may have originated from can be a fascinating family activity while hunting for shark teeth. Although you might not discover one on every trip, a shark can normally produce up to 25,000 teeth in their lifetime, so there are many to be found!
Just follow the steps & tips above and you’ll surely find your own shark teeth in a matter of days! Here’s how to find sharks near me.
Can’t you get enough of sharks and the ocean? Then he might want to consider becoming an activist, fighting for the future of the marine life and organizing activities such as beach clean-ups to help save the planet.
Something you could also do is to learn about narwhals and how to find their tusks, as long as they are not extinct yet.
