MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) – Mr. Sam Small, a chemistry teacher at Bayside Academy, was skipping rocks with his wife and two daughters near the Audubon Bird Sanctuary on Dauphin Island on Mother’s Day when he stumbled across a rare find – a tooth.
The tooth is around 1.5 inches long. After posting it on the Dauphin Island Facebook page, Sam Small got in contact with experts. Michelle Hamilton from Bayside Academy and Brian Jones, curator at the Estuarium on Dauphin Island, sent photos of the tooth to Dr. Jun Ebersole. Dr. Ebersole is a paleontologist at the McWane Center in Birmingham and is the state expert on shark teeth. He determined that the tooth is from a Great White Shark and dates back between 2.6 and 5 million years.
Dr. Ebersole says that he has found several Great White Shark teeth on Dauphin Island, but has never found one that was in such good condition.
Small hopes to donate the tooth to a museum, maybe the Estuarium, in memory of his late mother. He says, ““My goal would be maybe to donate it to a museum, maybe the Estuarium, in memory of my mom because I thought that finding it on Mother’s Day was a special message.”
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