A mother and son out for a day at the beach stumbled upon a huge megalodon tooth - with experts believing it's around twice the size of a tooth belonging to a great white shark.
The mum and son were beach combing at North Carolina’s Cape Lookout National Seashore when they came across the whopper of a tooth, which once belonged to the extinct shark species.
In a post on Facebook, Cape Lookout park rangers wrote: “You never know what you will find on the beach when you go beach combing.
“On Sunday, July 23rd, a mother and son found this massive shark tooth on the beach during a beach combing excursion on Cape Lookout.
Advert
“While we are not known for shark teeth on our beach, every once in a while they do show up, much to the delight of the finder. This tooth is an even rarer find. It belonged to a now-extinct shark species known as a Megalodon.
“If this is just one of its teeth, can you imagine how large the living animal was? (Scientists estimate that megalodon sharks were at least twice the size of today's Great White Sharks).”
Megalodon, which you may be familiar with because of the 2018 Jason Statham movie The Meg, lived around 23 to 3.6 million years ago and their name translates as ‘big tooth’ - after seeing the photo above I’m sure you can see why.
Its believed the sharks grew up to around 60-feet long, which is about three times the size of a great white.
Advert
Earlier this year, an artist created a somewhat chilling video showing what they could have been capable of - if they had evaded extinction and lived alongside humans, of course.
The video, created by artist @aleksey_nz, shows the gigantic shark tearing a ship in two with ease.
The video begins from the perspective of a helicopter flying above a body of water, where ships are sailing along.
Suddenly, a large fin emerges from the water as the megalodon makes its arrival.
Once he destroys the ship by launching from underneath, the shark then returns to the water.
Advert
Unfortunately for the helicopter, some of the ship's material flies towards them and knocks them into the water.
That is where the 'cameraman' - and the viewers - are met with a terrifying sight.
The video ends with the megalodon swimming towards the camera with its jaws wide open.
It gets a massive ‘nope’ from me.
Claire Reid