SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. ((WSVN) — An experienced diver is thrilled about what he found at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Florida. He believes the ancient discovery belonged to a legendary beast.
Boat captain Michael Nastasio could not believe what he was holding.
“It makes me feel like I got a tooth I’ve been dreaming about since I started doing this,” he said. “It’s just – I don’t even know how to explain it. I don’t think I could put it into words.”
Nastasio found a megalodon shark tooth larger than six inches, fully intact, with the serrated edges as sharp as a knife.
The boat captain said he found the fossil at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of southern Sarasota County, a few weeks ago.
“I swam for probably 20 to 30 minutes before I found any material that I actually liked,” he said, “and it wasn’t until two kicks after that, and I saw it looking at me and just, mind blown.”
Researchers from the University of Florida say megalodon sharks went extinct about 2.6 million years ago.
Nastasio said a megalodon tooth this large, with this color, is extremely rare.
“I think, last year I believe, only four or five, six-inch teeth were found in Venice, and there’s a lot of people doing it now,” he said. “That shows how uncommon that size of the tooth is.”
Nastasio said he won’t stop trying to find more megalodon teeth and hopes to find an even larger one.
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