The megalodon shark occupy a shadowy kingdom between fact and fiction . The monolithic prehistorical fish , think to give lengths up to 60 feet , really did survive jillion of eld ago ; it even has an prescribed Romance name : Carcharodon / Carcharocles megalodon(which translate befittingly to “ big tooth ” ) . However , despite the Discovery Channel special that coyly suggest the megalodon may still ramble the underwater depths , scientists agree that the gargantuan predator isextinct today . That makes Stjepan Sucec’sdiscovery of a 14 - inch shark toothin Croatia ’s Kupa River all the more exciting , because it ’s almost certainly a remnant straight from a megolodon ’s mouth .
Sucec , a resident of Pokupsko , a small village in primal Croatia , was only out to collect shells when he made his bounteous discovery . Although the waters of the Kupa are shallow enough to wade in some area , the space was antecedently occupied by the Pannonian Sea — a body of waterwell suitedto serve as the habitat of gargantuan sharks . Compared to the teeth of great white sharks , thought to be the megalodon ’s near surviving descendant , Sucec ’s find seems comically outsized , dwarfing the two- to three - inch specimen . The purported megalodon tooth is also a glossy black , compare to a dull lily-white — further grounds of its incredibly in advance geezerhood .
According to geologist Drazen Japundzic at Zagreb ’s Natural History Museum , it ’s a secure stakes that the tooth really is one of the only existing bit of fossilized evidence that corroborates the megalodon ’s existence . Being made in the main of cartilage , not many parts of the megalodon have survived the many million of class between their clip and ours ; fossilised teeth are nearly all scientists have to go on . For now , Sucec ’s favourable discovery remains in secure storage : a terrific reminder of the tremendous predators that once swam in the oceans , and a comforting assurance that such creature are long gone .
