This smile would have been a photographer's dream.
The state Museum of Natural Sciences has acquired a giant set of 25 beautifully preserved teeth from a 4-million-year-old precursor of the great white shark.The teeth belonged to a Carcharodon megalodon, or "mega-tooth shark," the largest marine predator known in the fossil record. The prehistoric shark was 42 feet long, weighed several tons, and had jaws that stretched 6 feet wide and 7 feet high.
The teeth will provide researchers with a valuable tool for studying sharks.
"These are the best set of over-5-inch teeth that have ever been found," said Vince Schneider, the museum's curator of paleontology.
The teeth were found by an amateur fossil hunter at an Aurora phosphate mine where the rich collection of marine fossils dates back 15 million years.