A guide for finding fossilized shark teeth

I'm fortunate enough to have an aunt that lives on Venice Island in Florida.. the country's "shark tooth capitol", so I can go visit her and look for shark's teeth whenever I want. Within a couple days, and only a few hours each day, Josh and I found over 200 shark's teeth ourselves. We have also been to Calvert County in Maryland which is another area with large volumes of shark teeth that wash ashore. If you are interested in collecting fossils, you may want to check out some of these locations to look for teeth and I wrote this blog especially to teach you how to find them once you're there. You'd be amazed at how many visitors have passed us on the beaches and asked what we were doing when we were looking for teeth. They had no idea there were so many hidden treasures just within their reach!

We found all of these teeth within a couple hours

A few facts about shark teeth
The "teeth" you find washed ashore, or mixed in amongst the shells are actually fossilized teeth. The different colors depends on the sediment they were buried in. The reason they are so abundant is because sharks are constantly losing teeth and having new ones replace them throughout their lifetime.  Some species of sharks loose hundreds of teeth every day because the teeth are only held in by cartilage and easily fall out when they eat. Florida has hot spots for teeth because the state was once all underwater, meaning most of Florida's residents were once all sharks.. or at least some form of sea creatures. There are other good locations to collect teeth off the beach as well.

Here are a few good shark tooth collection locations I know of 
(and I'm sure there are many many more places to find teeth in high abundances!):

-Caspersen Beach state park, and all the other beaches in Venice, Florida
(Sarasota Country, on the west coast of FL)
-Peace River, Florida (about 30 miles south of Venice)
-Flag Ponds, Calvert County, Maryland
-Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

You will need one of the following tools
-sand dipper
-colander/strainer
-special shark tooth sifter/ collecting tool

Shark tooth sifter

-piece of screen to sort through your findings more easily (optional, in addition to one of the tools above)

Directions

It is best to look for teeth during the low tides. The places you want to check are at the tide line where debri is washed up, and right at the area where the tide breaks in the water. If you're looking on land where shells are washed up, keep an eye out for dark triangular or "Y" shaped objects. If you are looking deeper in the water where there are more likely to be teeth, you will need a tool.

Take a scoop of shells right along where the tide breaks (you will get wet to do this) with whatever tool you are using, and shake it clear of sand and sentiment (under the water), leaving just shells and fossils behind.

Scoop up the materials that you see under water right where this wave is breaking

Josh is the best at finding shark teeth

Dump your findings out on the beach and sort through it with your hands. If you have a screen set up, dump your findings on the screen and sift through it.

Look for dark triangular shapes in the pile. Teeth can range in size from ones you can barely see with the naked eye, to megalodon teeth up to 6 inches long! Most teeth you will find will be small. Some will also be broken and you may only find parts or remnants of teeth. The more often you look for them, the easier it will be for you to identify them. Below is a guide for identifying shark's teeth by species.

Rinse your teeth off and start keeping a collection. You can display nicer ones in a specimen mount, and when you start collecting hundreds of them you may just prefer to keep them in a jar. Within just a few hours we got handfuls of teeth and other fossils. The longer pieces of dark material are often stingray plates/teeth or barbs. If it has a serrated edge, it is probably a grinding plate, which is similar to shark's teeth in that they fall out very often. We have also found whale bones, dolphin teeth, and other cool fossils but you may need a fossil guide or book to help identify them all.

Our findings from Venice this trip