An ancient shark tooth, a distant ancestor of the megalodon, was discovered in Crimea, reports the local portal “Rodina“.
For the first time in six years of work, archaeologists have discovered a sea monster tooth in the Taurida cave. Scientists have mostly come across bones of land animals, but here they accidentally discovered a tooth of a marine animal. The limestone cave itself is 45 million years old. Remains of animals older than the cave have been preserved here.
As archaeologist Bogdan Zaitsev explained, calcium carbonate shells dissolve very easily together with limestone, and the teeth are dense because they consist of the mineral apatite, which does not dissolve. So the limestone dissolved during the formation of the cave, but the tooth did not. It ended up in the layers that researchers are now studying.
As a result, a photo of the tooth was sent to a specialist from St. Petersburg State University, who must determine what kind of shark and how old its owner was.