Belleair resident Rusty Walker and his son, Cooper, are thrilled to have found a Megalodon shark’s tooth on Indian Rocks Beach. The tooth is believed to be millions of years old.
INDIAN ROCKS BEACH – What Rusty Walker saw as he and his son walked the beach on Jan.16 was a dream come true. It was a sharks’ tooth from a species that has been extinct for millions of years, and it was something the Belleair resident never thought he’d ever find.
Walker and his 4-year-old son, Cooper, regularly walk on Indian Rocks Beach looking for shark’s teeth. They often find many of them, but never anything like this.
“It was weird when I saw it,” he said. “I knew what it was right away, absolutely. My dream was to find something like that and now we’re energized more than ever.”
The tooth came from a Megalodon shark and an expert has placed it anywhere from 2.5-to 10-million years old. Jay Jolin of Fossilseekers.com has been collecting, studying and selling sharks’ teeth for years. He explained sharks teeth fall out, sink to the bottom and are imbedded in the sediment that acts as a cocoon preserving them for all that time. He has seen Megalodon teeth before but not from Indian Rocks Beach.
“Believe it or not there are quite a few of them in the United States,” he said. “But in that location they are quite rare, in fact I have never heard of anybody finding one in Indian Rocks Beach. I am 99.9 percent sure it is a Megalodon tooth.”
The excitement over finding the tooth was still evident in Rusty Walker days later.
“When we found the tooth, Cooper ran around all over the beach showing people,” he said. “Everyone on Indian Rocks Beach that day saw the tooth. If you were on the beach you weren’t getting past us without seeing it.”
Cooper took it to show and tell at his school later in the week. He told his dad that his classmates and teacher were excited to see the tooth. But when his dad asked him if he passed it around he said “no.”
“He told me the tooth was special, just between us Daddy, and he didn’t want to lose it,” said Rusty who was clearly moved by the moment.
Such teeth are valuable in the sharks’ teeth collecting community. Rusty says he’s seen them go for as much as $2,000 on the Internet. Jolin says the value would depend on a number of factors. The condition of the tooth is foremost, then the color (some colors are rarer than others), and the size – the bigger the better.
“The largest tooth on record is more than 7-inches wide,” he said. “Those sharks were big, from 60- to 80-feet long, in fact they were gigantic.”
The value of the tooth is little more than a curiosity for Walker. There is no way he intends to part with it, ever.
“I’m going to frame it along with some historical explanation of what it is, and keep it. I’ll give it to Cooper and he can keep it forever.”
Their search isn’t over, however. Rusty said they will continue to walk the beach every weekend.
“This is a fun hobby, I love it, Cooper loves it and this find has lit a fire. We are more enthusiastic than ever.”
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