Texas High School Student Finds Ancient Shark Tooth

Plano West High School biology students Lillia Blasius and Ashley Chanpong came across the find of a lifetime while their class was digging in a creek bed near their school. Dallas News writes that since Blasius and Chanpong separated from the group and went a bit further away, they happened to pick the perfect spot to find a prehistoric shark tooth!

“I saw the outline of a tooth in the ground and I was like — ‘that’s really interesting, it must be something,” Blasius told WFAA. But Blasius told the school newspaper, the Plano West HS Blueprints, that at first, her teacher said she simply found a chicken bone. “I knew it looked like a shark tooth so I asked the other biology teacher, Mr. Kirpach, and he said it was definitely a shark tooth,” she explained.

According to AP biology teacher Wesley Kirpach, students have found shark teeth in the past in the creek bed, but it’s extremely rare. The tooth is larger than a penny but certainly isn’t shockingly big. Experts say that it most likely belonged to an 18-foot shark that lived 25 million years ago. It’s an amazing find for the students and teachers!