9-year-old Molly Sampson is an aspiring paleontologist who frequently explores around her hometown of Prince Frederick, Maryland looking for fossils. The fourth grader recently found a 5-inch prehistoric tooth from an extinct predator called a megalodon, which existed over 23 million years ago. Sampson found the massive fossil while searching through the Chesapeake Bay for shark teeth with her family and was shocked at the discovery. She took the tooth to the Calvert Marine Museum, where paleontologists informed her that the “once-in-a-lifetime” finding was in fact from a megalodon. The size of the tooth indicates that the megalodon was likely 50 feet long. Sampson plans on keeping the tooth on display in her bedroom as inspiration to continue chasing her dreams of becoming a paleontologist.
Image via CNN / Alicia Sampson
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