1.83" Fossil Mako Tooth - Summerville, SC

Fossil Mako Tooth - Summerville, SC #45963

This is a colorful fossil Mako shark tooth from Summerville, SC. The 15 million year old Summerville localities are renown for producing, light colored and highly collectable teeth. Due to the acidic condition of this land location, teeth often do not preserve as well as other localities, so well preserved ones can be hard to find.

This shark, whose teeth can be found in deposits worldwide, lived from the Eocene to the Pleistocene. It had been historically classified as a broad-toothed mako shark (Isurus hastalis). It was then reclassified as Cosmopolitodus hastalis, making it a type of extinct mackerel shark.

More recent research has reclassified it as part of the white shark lineage, which would rename the species to Carcharodon hastalis. You can read more about this here. What classification is correct is still under debate, leading to lots of different labels for these teeth. We prefer the most recent interpretation and label them as Carcharodon hastalis.

Teeth of this shark have been found up to 3 1/2 inches in length but teeth over 2 1/2 inches are uncommon and very rare over 3 inches.