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A barnacle-covered tooth found off the North Carolina coast counts as one of the largest megalodon shark teeth ever discovered, experts say.
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Scuba diver Eric Proulx of Carolina Beach reports he was 120 down when he plucked the 7.05-inch tooth off the Atlantic seafloor, about 40 miles east of Wilmington. The site is known to fossil hunters as “Megalodon Ledge.”
“When I saw it, it was lying on the sand in clear view. I knew it was huge but didn’t know it passed the 7-inch mark. It wasn’t until I was on the boat that I got an actual measurement,” Proulx told The Charlotte Observer in an email.
“When I first started diving, I went out on public charter boats and I told them I was going to be the first one to find a 7-inch tooth, and they told me I was more likely to win the lottery. It took me seven years, but I got one.”
Megalodon sharks went extinct about 3.6 million years ago, and a 2025 study by fossil shark experts determined they may have reached about 80 feet in length, according to the Natural History Museum in London.
Proulx’s find “represents the largest megalodon tooth currently reported from offshore North Carolina,” according to Dr. Harry Maisch IV, a Florida Gulf Coast University marine and earth sciences instructor who studies megalodon teeth.
“Finding a megalodon tooth over seven inches long is exceptionally rare and not many of this size are reported around the world,” Maisch said in an email. “Based on current megalodon body size interpretations, a tooth of this size may have derived from a 70-80 foot shark.”
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FossilEra – the “world’s leading” fossil retailer – says megalodon teeth average 4 to 5 inches in length, and less than 1% exceed six inches. Proulx, a Charlotte native, believes “a few seven-inch teeth have been found in the rivers of the Carolinas,” but details of such finds are scarce.
It’s not clear if the debris attached to Proulx’s megalodon tooth is also ancient, but he has decided not to clean off the barnacles. “I intend to keep it in a secure location until I find the right home for it,” he said.
Eastern North and South Carolina are considered a hub for finding marine fossils, due to once being the floor of an ancient ocean, experts say.
“North Carolina has special layers of sediment from two important time periods: the Miocene and the Pliocene. … These formations are full of marine fossils, including megalodon teeth,” Buried Treasure Fossils reports.
“Over millions of years, rivers and erosion slowly bring these fossils closer to the surface. Then, storms, tides, and waves carry them to the beach. This mix of ancient marine deposits and coastal activity makes North Carolina a hot spot for fossil hunting.”
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Wilmington is about a 130-mile drive southeast from downtown Raleigh.