Venice Beach Conditions

[adurso]

Wow .... I would love to find a tooth that size whole .... that is like 6 inches .... my largest is 3 1/2 inches.
Megaladon teeth are thicker and larger then the small teeth ... is that it?
Question girl ... I know
KP

To put it in perspective for you, the rule of thumb for shark size from teeth is 10 feet per inch, the meg teeth found around Venice are from juveniles, they would have run upwards of thirty feet long, adults may have been as large as sixty feet long, or more, your 3 1/2 tooth came from a juvenile that was 35 feet long.

The other teeth come from other species and the teeth reflect diet, the narrow pointy teeth are for catching fish, the needle like shape holds a wriggling fish; megs, makos, great whites are adapted for larger prey, like whales, thus a more robust tooth.

Florida West has a number of books on tooth identification. There is also much speculation amongst a certain segment of paleozoologists and cryptozoologists that there are megs in the deeps which makes for interesting reading.

 

[CBulla]

adurso - a closer guesstimate for megalodon tooth size vs. length is found here:
http://www.fossilguy.com/topics/megsize/megsize.htm

Mark Renz has a good explaination in his book Megalodon: Hunting the Hunter, he explains how that measurement guesstimation was derived.

Next Fossil Expedition with Mark is the 2nd weekend of March! Maybe earlier if I can get a group interested, I've had reports of the rivers being low.

 

[adurso]

Colin, yes that is a much better job than my old off the cuff estimates. We are going to be back in that area in late June, early July, bringing some folks from up here with us; hopefully we will see you again then. How is the little one?

 

[Divergirl4U]

Hey thanks for the links ... very interesting
KP

 

[CBulla]

Colin, yes that is a much better job than my old off the cuff estimates. We are going to be back in that area in late June, early July, bringing some folks from up here with us; hopefully we will see you again then. How is the little one?

Most welcome! I think next weekend Kris and I are working something to go dive next weekend. I was wiped from whatever wrecked my guts during the week. I've got to add to my mammal skeletons collection!

Lil one is here beside me and getting BIG.. he's going to have to learn how to hunt soon to help feed himself! These boys are bottomless pits!

 

[Mmm Scuba]

Next Fossil Expedition with Mark is the 2nd weekend of March! Maybe earlier if I can get a group interested, I've had reports of the rivers being low.

I was sifting in the peace river last weekend. The water was sinky and somewhere between tea and coffee, and lots of silt. I'm not sure how to gauge the water level. I've only been there once before. Last march it was very clear (and cold) and maybe a few feet lower. Once we found some gravel we managed to find 5 or 10 mammal teeth and a hand full of small shark teeth. And a few that are 'something'.