Fossilized Shark Teeth Q & A

Are your shark teeth legal to sell? Where do you get them?

I responsibly source my fossils from my local public beaches. I have been a collector for years and hope to spread the passion for fossils by incorporating them in my jewelry. Loose fossilized shark teeth found on the public beach are phenomenally common and are not considered scientifically important if they are from a commonly found species - so mine are legal to sell. Most of my jewelry will incorporate teeth from sand tiger sharks, tiger sharks, or snaggletooth sharks. I can usually get lucky with these and find them large and intact enough to wire wrap.

However, selling fossils collected from National Forest System lands is illegal and even collection of fossils for personal use may be monitored. Many states will even require permits for fossil collecting, so if it is a hobby you yourself want to take up check out your local laws and hunt responsibly and safely!

Why are fossilized shark teeth so common?

Sharks are older than trees and dinosaurs. They've been around for about 450 million years. During a shark's lifetime it may grow and use over 20,000 teeth, 30,000 teeth, or even 50,000 teeth. Sharks can be found in every ocean of the world and in almost all oceanic habitats. It's estimated that there are currently as many as one billion sharks in the world with more than 500 species. Shark teeth are made up of some of the hardest mineralized tissues so they can withstand the environment and time it takes to fossilize. With that many sharks in the ocean with that many teeth for that many years...that's a lot of teeth!

Why are fossilized shark teeth different colors?

The color of the fossil depends on the environment it was fossilized in. Different minerals produce different colors. Environmental factors such as plant roots growing along the fossil or water running through the sediment will also impact the colors and patterns of a fossil. An environment rich in phosphate will result in a black fossil; an iron rich environment will result in red and orange colors; and environments with lots of limestone and gray clays will result in fossils with gray, yellow, and green shades.

Why collect shark teeth as a hobby?

Why not? People have been collecting fossilized shark teeth for thousands of years! Scientists uncovered teeth from a Late Cretaceous shark in a 2,900 year old house in Jerusalem's City of David. The house is at least 80 kilometers away from the nearest fossil deposit that would house similarly aged fossils. That same team has found fossilized shark teeth in other parts of Israel and ancient Judea. The hypothesis is that these fossils that are at least 66 million years old were collectibles.

What is the importance of fossilized shark teeth in history?

Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), a great Roman naturalist, believed that fossilized shark teeth would fall from the sky during lunar eclipses. These teeth were found high up on mountainsides far from the sea; they were a mystery.

Later fossilized shark teeth would come to be called "tongue stones" - or glossopetrae. They were thought to be the tongues of serpents that Saint Paul had turned to stone on the islands of Malta. These tongue stones were used in the Middle Ages to detoxify poison. They would be held against a venomous snakebite or dipped into a chalice of wine to detoxify it. Tongue stones would be worn as amulets or hidden away in secret pockets. That is until the birth of paleontology...

In 1666 a shark was being dissected by the Danish naturalist Niels Stensen (commonly known as Nicolaus Steno) who realized how much the shark's teeth looked like tongue stones. Steno then had to prove that tongue stones were in fact shark teeth. Back then naturalists were starting to take up the view that matter was composed of "corpuscles." Corpuscles are what we now call molecules. Steno argued that over time the corpuscles of the teeth were replaced by mineral corpuscles - basically detailing fossilization. Tissue would turn to stone. He went on to study the layering of the cliffs and hills of Italy. Thus Steno's Law of Superposition was born. He was not the only naturalist to propose that fossils once belonged to living creatures. Leonardo da Vinci and Robert Hooke also took up the same view. Steno presented his findings in a book in 1669 and many hail him as the "father of modern geology and paleontology."

It must be said though, that even before shark teeth were thought to be tongue stones and even before those tongue stones were thought to have fallen from the sky, the Mayans were possibly the first peoples on earth to identify the Megalodon based on their fossil teeth.

In Classic Mayan writing the logograph for shark is "xook" or "xoc," pronounced "shok" (rhymes with woke). When it came to portraying the xook it was often done with one large shiny tooth or with a top jaw lined with teeth and practically no lower jaw. The xook were viewed as deities but their imagery is often more realistic than divine. The imagery featuring the toothed upper jaw would be inspired by the upper jaws of sharks that were brought inland from the coast. Or it could have been inspired by bull sharks that would travel fresh water rivers into Mexico and Guatemala. So Mayans had first hand knowledge and second hand knowledge of sharks. As for the single tooth representations of the xook - fossilized Megalodon teeth have been found in many Maya sites. The Maya peoples could have discovered these teeth and imagined xook-like creatures whose jaw sported the single large tooth. This would make the Maya among the first people to identify the Megalodon.

How else have fossilized shark teeth been used throughout history?

Fossilized shark teeth have been used throughout history as projectile points, knives, scraping tools, weapon edges and even as ornaments for religious purposes. They can practically be found all over the world and would be traded thousands of miles inland sometimes.

What are the metaphysical properties of fossilized shark teeth?

Let their age and resiliency offer you a general sense of protection and bring you a sense of strength and determination.