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How Do I Identify Shark Teeth in Coastal Georgia?

Dozens of species of sharks inhabit the waters off Georgia's coast, but the most populous are the bull, nurse, lemon, tiger, mako and blacktip sharks. Bull sharks are the most dangerous due to their affinity for shallow waters and high tolerance for fresh water, both of which put them in proximity to people. The bull and blacktip sharks frequently visit inland Georgia waterways and are often seen in rivers far from the sea. You will find many shark teeth in these inland waterways, as well as on beaches.

Instructions

- 1
  Look at the tooth to determine if it is a specimen from a modern shark or a fossil. Fossil shark teeth will appear almost black or gray, compared to modern teeth, which appear nearly white.
- 2
  Examine the tooth carefully. Knowing the species of sharks that inhabit the Georgia coast eliminates a lot of possibilities and makes identification of the tooth easier. A tiger shark tooth, for example, is possibly the easiest of shark teeth to identify. They are heavily serrated, curved at the root and culminate in a very sharp point. Google is possibly the best place online to find pictures of shark teeth. By simply typing in the words "tiger shark teeth," the first entry to appear on the search page will be a document containing hundreds of photos of tiger shark teeth, both in the mouth and removed from the mouth.
- 3
  Study the root of the tooth you found. The root almost always is set at a 90 degree angle to the tooth. If you run across a small, slightly curved and pointy tooth, it may mean that you found a lemon shark tooth.
- 4
  Run your finger along a tooth's edges to feel the serrations. Sometimes it's difficult to see the serrations, but this is another indication of species. The serrated teeth of the bull shark, for example, can help identify it from other species with similarly shaped teeth minus the serrations. A magnifying glass may help.
- 5
  Note the color. If the tooth is black, brown or gray, you've found a fossil. The tooth itself normally appears darker than the root. Many "modern" shark teeth can be fossilized, since sharks have remained unchanged for the past 50 million years or so. There are also "extinct" versions of current species. They are identified as such because of their similarities between modern and ancient species. The extinct versions, however, will be larger than their modern cousins. If you run across a fossilized tooth that happens to be a six inches or more long, you may have found a Megalodon tooth---and you could be rich. Estimates are that the Megalodon was 50 to 100 feet long.

Fossil Collecting