# Shark teeth finds while on the beach...



## keltex78 (Aug 22, 2016)

There was some interest in the shark teeth I found so I'm posting some pics here:

About 8-9 years ago, we were talking to someone on the beach who showed us a shark tooth they had found. That set the entire family to hunting, and we found several on that trip. We usually make 1-2 trips to gulf coast every year, and we spend a lot of our time hunting teeth now.

I particularly enjoy surf fishing, because even if the fish aren't biting, I can still walk the beach collecting shark teeth...

This is the collection of several hundred I've found in the past few years:









The hamburger bean seems to be an oddity. I've only ever found the one. I was walking on one of the jetties at the Galveston Seawall and found it floating in the waves between a couple of the rocks. I didn't know what it was (and wasn't sure if I wanted to pick it up). When I took it back to the hotel room and looked at it closer, I thought it was plastic, but started searching online and found out what it was. Since then, I've seen them in gift shops, but have never found another.

Here are the largest teeth I've ever found:









...and here are some of the smallest:









I'll be back at the beach again next week (all week long!) and am hoping to add a few more to the collection... :biggrin:


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## Lucky (Sep 1, 2005)

Very cool! That brings back good memories on Sea Isle beach with the family searching for them. The few trips I take with my son involve shark tooth hunting while the rods are out.


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## sharkchum (Feb 10, 2012)

That's a nice collection of teeth. We use to find tons of them on Bolivar, but I haven't found one for years. The hamburger beans are a different story, Sargent is loaded with them.


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## andre3k (Dec 3, 2012)

What is a hamburger bean?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## the toninator (Jan 19, 2016)

of the big ones the sand tiger nad extinct tiger are awesome!


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## the toninator (Jan 19, 2016)

This is my collection since Jan of this year and the Great White I found last year (on a silver dollar for scale.)


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## keltex78 (Aug 22, 2016)

That Great White tooth is awesome... I'm always hoping to find something like that.

What's the difference between a tiger shark tooth, and an extinct tiger shark tooth?

And yeah, finding the sand-tiger tooth was awesome. The water was fairly clear and I was on top of a sand bar with the water about ankle deep or less. I was watching and saw it drifting on the sand as a wave washed across and I snatched it at the last second. That tooth was the trophy find of the week.

The hamburger bean is a seed from a plant that grows in tropical regions. The seeds fall from the plant into rivers, and then drift into the Gulf, where they wash up on beaches.

More info here:
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/mucuna.htm


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## the toninator (Jan 19, 2016)

Just based off of looking at some charts, I'm pretty new at this, the one circled in yellow is the Sand Tiger. The one is red is the extinct tiger and the two things that stand out are the defined flat part of the left and then the huge bend on the right.


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## Ice Cream Man (Aug 10, 2013)

Trade some filets to a diver for 2 Meglodon teeth...... ICM


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## keltex78 (Aug 22, 2016)

the toninator said:


> Just based off of looking at some charts, I'm pretty new at this, the one circled in yellow is the Sand Tiger. The one is red is the extinct tiger and the two things that stand out are the defined flat part of the left and then the huge bend on the right.


I understand the difference between the Sand Tiger tooth and the Tiger tooth, and that those are two different species of shark. My question is how can we tell if the Tiger (non-Sand) tooth is from an extinct or extant species? I've looked at Tiger shark tooth pics and they look very similar to the one I've found. Based on reading this site:
http://www.fossilguy.com/gallery/vert/fish-shark/galeocerdo/galeocerdo.htm
...the extinct Tiger shark was smaller than the modern Tiger shark we know. In addition, (I don't have the tooth with me today to measure) the tooth I found appears to be a larger specimen, even for the modern Tiger. I would assume this to be tooth from a modern-day species, but I do have a smaller Tiger tooth in my collection; I'll have to check it, but it would be really cool if I get to verify it as from an extinct species...


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## the toninator (Jan 19, 2016)

Yea, I picked up on the difference in your question after I drew the pretty circles and just decided to leave them.
Also noted, I'm no expert and just based off of what I was seeing it looked like the tiger was the extinct kind but again I could (and probably am) wrong.
Both are pretty b!tch1n teeth and i'm jealous.


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## Category6 (Nov 21, 2007)

Do y'all use a sifter or just find them lying amongst the shells? I'm extremely interested in finding some, and I've spent time looking but zero so far. Thanks.


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## peckerwood (Jun 9, 2012)

This has been one cool thread that I have enjoyed a bunch.I love me some arrowhead hunting and could really get into me some shark teeth.


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## popeye_iv (Oct 29, 2015)

Category5 said:


> Do y'all use a sifter or just find them lying amongst the shells? I'm extremely interested in finding some, and I've spent time looking but zero so far. Thanks.


Another one here. I used to find a bunch of small ones around Daytona, but since I've been here I can't find anything but broken glass and cigarette butts. I usually walk along Surfside or bryan.


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## olcolby (Jun 4, 2004)

*the trick*

I have also spent quite a bit of time looking for shark teeth but have only found one small black on on west end of galveston years ago. Had a friend in the 70's that had found hundreds of them on the west end back then. Just wondering if there is some trick to finding them. Have searched from galveston to south padre with little success. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!


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## scwine (Sep 7, 2006)

I used to love looking for them back when I would visit the west end of Galveston island. seems like that was the best place. 
It's all about getting your eyes focused on them. Usually, after finding your first one it becomes much easier. Most of the west end, it seem like every 5 square feet there was always one just a couple of feet from the highest water line. 
Also, the teeth are lighter than just about anything else. When the wave water is receding back, look at all the little black things tumbling back with it. If you see one, stand still and wait for the water to come back up and it will be within inches of the same spot you saw it tumbling within the 1-2" wave water. 
I can walk with people and they just don't see them. I think think they look to fast and expect the tooth to jump out after them. The person that showed me way back when, could stand in one shell spot on the west end and sift a little sand with his hands and always find at least one small one.

I find 99% of mine on the wet part of the sand or tumbling in the wave water. The couple of larger ones I found were up on the high tide line....I never spend any time looking much up there. It so much easier to look where the water was within a few hours, or tumbling in the waters edge.


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## snapperlicious (Aug 11, 2009)

*Bean*



andre3k said:


> What is a hamburger bean?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


http://www.seabean.com/guide/Mucuna_elliptica/


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## gigem87 (May 19, 2006)

I got some killer sunburns on my back looking for teeth as a kid in Galveston. You do have to get your eyes trained for them. I just look for T's


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## scwine (Sep 7, 2006)

Seeds/Beans...I used to find the heart shaped ones(#6 in article).. here are the different types..http://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/nonpwdpubs/young_naturalist/plants/sea_beans/


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## the toninator (Jan 19, 2016)

Category5 said:


> Do y'all use a sifter or just find them lying amongst the shells? I'm extremely interested in finding some, and I've spent time looking but zero so far. Thanks.


I've had difficulty finding them in places off of bolivar. Some places like near surfside make sense because they maintain those beaches. The dump sand and run graders over them. I think those of us went went to galveston remember finding them as kids but I havent been there looking in a long time. I'm going to assume it'll be slim pickins due to the maintenance of the beach.
Couldnt find any down at Mustang Island or any all the way up around at Sea rim. Not saying there arent any around there I just havent had any luck.

The best luck i've had is on the falling tide, right at the high edge of the wave in the shell beds.
1. I look for dark shiny things
2. Look for the whale tail shape of the root
3. Look for the 'triangle' shape (tip of the tooth to the edges of the roots)


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## keltex78 (Aug 22, 2016)

I spent eight full days at Bolivar over the past week, but unfortunately, conditions were poor for finding teeth most of the time. Saturday before we left, the tide finally fell low enough (combined with the change in wind direction?) and I found over half of the week's teeth that afternoon. I ended up with three dozen teeth for the entire week. Conditions were so bad that I ended up several times, standing in calf-deep water with a kid's plastic sifter, and actually found several teeth scooping through the wash, letting the waves wash the shells and sand into the sifter, and making like a prospector panning for gold...

The second-largest of these was an unexpected high-tide-line find at low tide.










If anyone can identify what that skinny rod is in the top-right corner, that would be awesome. I find these from time-to-time, and they appear to be a fossilized "something". Just not sure what...

My technique:

My sole experience finding teeth has been on Bolivar between Crystal Beach and High Island (other than a single tooth found on the beach on Galveston Island). Other locations may vary...

I normally don't use a sifter. I've build a larger sifter, and that turned out to be a pain. I've played with the kiddy-sized plastic sifter, and only found a few this trip, through sheer desperation. They were all very tiny, and would have washed through the mesh, but were visible on the sand in the sifter.

The occasional larger tooth can be found among the shells left at the high-tide line, but they are rare (possibly because they are so visible, and that region gets picked over very well by everyone else there), and more teeth can be found at the water's edge.

Best locations and timing seems to be the water's edge at low tide. Look for locations where there are large patches of the tiny white crushed/broken shell pieces exposed on the beach, with waves regularly washing across to refresh the surface. I typically find a lot if there is a drop-off immediately behind this, where you can watch for the teeth washing back when the waves go back out.

The teeth seem to be lighter than the sand and shells, so although they sink in the water, they appear to "float" to the top of the bed, where the lighter color of the broken shells contrasts nicely with the darker gray/black color of the typical tooth.

Just watch the bed closely as the wave goes out, and you will sometime see them floating across the sand following the wave. Snatch quickly if you see one moving, as I've spotted many teeth moving in the waves when it was too late to grab before they disappear. When the wave is out, scan the sandy shell bed looking for the darker color and triangular shape of the tooth. Look for the small ridges left in the bed and focus on the leading edge where teeth often get caught as they wash back out.

I find most teeth under these conditions, but they can be anywhere. I've found tiny teeth by picking up random handfuls of sand and picking through. I also found a small one when I shook the sand out of my beach shoes last trip. The larger Sand Tiger tooth pictured earlier was found when I was wading in ankle-deep water on a sand-bar one evening, when the water was unusually clear. I saw it drifting and snatched it before it washed away.

A lot of times, I'll end up with a two-fer; when I spot a single tooth, an unusual number of times, I've found a second tooth very close to the first. I'm not certain if that's because that spot is favorable for accumulating teeth, if moving closer to the spot to pick up the first tooth makes it easier to spot the second, or if observation of the first tooth temporarily increases my eye focus to that particular shape, but it's something I've noticed...

Hunting shark teeth at the beach has been an obsession since I first found they could be found, and I've really enjoyed searching on every trip down since...


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## xmatador (Mar 13, 2014)

Great info Keltex! I spent some time looking for them around HI last weekend and didn't find any.


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