Schoolgirl, 12, finds huge 20million-year-old tooth from the biggest shark in history on beach 

A 12-year-old schoolgirl was shocked to find a huge 20-million-year-old tooth from the largest shark ever.

Cydney Root was on the beach looking for fossils in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, when she found a tooth big enough to fill a human hand.

Her aunt, Sophie Freestone, recognized it right away – it belonged to a megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived and ruler of the prehistoric oceans. The word megalodon itself means “big tooth.”

Miss Freestone, 29, said: ‘We’ve always hunted shark teeth, we’ve got pots of them and we said that day how great it would be to find a mega tooth, and we found one.

“A huge cliff had fallen the day before, so we went down the next day and it was right in front of the cliff — it was just sitting there on the surface.

The prehistoric shark tooth is big enough to fill a hand and is uncommon in the UK

A reconstructed megalodon jaws at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science

“My cousin Cydney found it. Her eyes were down and then she picked it up to show me.

“She was like, ‘Sophie, what is this?’ And I was like ‘oh my god, it’s a mega tooth!’.

Seeing the fossil’s size brings out the megalodon’s massive scale.

The species grew up to 60 feet (18 meters) long, and their jaws — which could have engulfed two adult humans at once — were lined with 276 of these teeth.

According to the Natural History Museum, their bite possessed up to 180,000 Newtons of crushing force — ten times that of a great white.

The size and power of the prehistoric predator is now inspiring Hollywood, with the species depicted in the 2018 monster movie The Meg and its upcoming sequel.

Sophie, who lives in Walton-on-the-Naze, said: ‘They were bigger than whales; I think they used to eat whales and I know they used to eat great whites.

“Proves there were megs roaming around here.”

In addition to being the largest shark in the world, it was also one of the largest fish that ever existed. The word megalodon itself means ‘big tooth’

The megalodon appeared in the world’s oceans about 20 million years ago and went extinct about 3.6 million years ago

The extinct beast from below: Megalodon roamed the seas more than 3.6 million years ago

In the photo: Megalodon

The megalodon, which means big tooth, lived between 23 and 3.6 million years ago.

O. megalodon is considered one of the largest and most powerful predators in vertebrate history, and fossil remains suggest it grew up to 20 meters in length.

The monster is thought to have looked like a stockier version of the now-feared great white shark and weighed up to 100 tons.

Megalodon is recognizable by its huge vertebrae and teeth, which are triangular and have a diagonal length of almost eight inches.

It took famed fossil hunter Vito “Megalodon” Bertucci nearly 20 years to reconstruct the jaw of a megalodon – the largest ever assembled – which measures 10 feet across and nearly 7 feet high.

The Megalodon’s colossal mouth is said to have produced a raw force of 10.8 to 18.2 tons.

The ancient shark has been described as a super predator, as it could swim at high speeds and quickly kill a wide variety of prey, such as sea turtles and whales, in its strong jaws.

Shark tooth hunting is an old pastime in Sophie’s family. But last Thursday – when she was joined by her nieces, Florence Murphy and Cydney – one of them found a tooth of the dreaded megalodon for the first time.

Sophie said, ‘This is the first one we found in the family.

‘We were really shocked and surprised; really happy and excited.

“I was happy to be with her and I’m really proud that she found it.

“But I was a little jealous, I’m not going to lie – she beat me to it!”

Cydney now plans to frame the huge shark tooth on her wall.

The megalodon appeared in the world’s oceans about 20 million years ago and went extinct about 3.6 million years ago.

Emma Bernard of the Natural History Museum said megalodon teeth were “extremely rare” in the UK, but cited Walton-on-the-Naze as a place to look.

She said they are more common in the southeastern United States, Morocco and Australia.

In 1843, Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz gave this shark its original scientific name, Carcharodon megalodon, based on tooth remains.

But more than 150 years later, no additional fossil evidence has yet been found to draw conclusions about their bodies, such as a complete skeleton.