We pulled into Myrtle Beach, South Carolina last night and headed straight for the beach for the boys to have a run around. They do amazingly well in the car, we’d had a relatively short drive by our standards, around 5 hours of sitting still. Those little limbs needed to move. Myrtle Beach is beautiful! A long stretch of fine sand studded with shells, a jetty punctuating the view and making for great photos. As usual, we’d done zero research, we stopped here because we’d noticed there were loads of cheap hotel deals to be had. I quite enjoy this sort of unplanned travel, each stop is a new discovery, no plans or expectations. What we found here, handfuls of black, fossilised sharks’ teeth, was an added bonus and a thrill for the kids.
The kids ran and played in the warm afternoon sunshine. Local people walked, but why were so many of them standing in the shallows looking at the water?
We ignored them at first. Local crazies? Searching for shellfish to eat? No idea. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me, so I asked.
This is what they were finding.
Myrtle Beach Shark Teeth.
Loads of them!
In all my years of living on Four Mile Beach, Australia, I have never, ever found one. This is really unusual!
But why on earth are the Myrtle Beach shark teeth black? Surely they should be white. It turns out that these are fossilised shark’s teeth and Myrtle Beach is a well know fossil and sharks’ teeth hunting area. I Googled, I found this post on how to best find teeth at Myrtle Beach.
They came in all shapes and sizes, there were a lot of hooked, pointy teeth like the ones above, but we did manage to find one very large, triangular serrated tooth. Our best fossilised shark tooth ever. But I lost it. Duh!
Being a zoologist I get all excited about working out which shark they came from. See how the homeschooling ( AKA worldschooling) is happening here?
So what did we do with our sharks teeth? The boys put them under their pillows, they hope the tooth fairy will stop by.
We’ll be straight back down the beach after breakfast to find more.
Myrtle Beach was just one stop on our extended USA road trip, if you’d like to read more about our journey and the fascinating places we visited, you’d need this post on Planning a USA road trip. We hope you found this glimpse of Myrtle beach and finding fossilised shark teeth interesting, another glimpse into this big, fascinating world.
Thomas Hamilton
Tuesday 11th of June 2019
Any idea what kind of shark this one is from? I found it today, am currently vacationing in north myrtle beach around ocean Annie’s beachfront live musical outdoor watering hole
Alyson Long
Tuesday 11th of June 2019
No idea really, but looks like raggy tooth or grey nurse, the pointy ones.
April Yap
Friday 3rd of March 2017
Nice Post Alyson! Myrtle beach is one of our favorite family destination in South Carolina. We've been there a couple of times and we never get tired of going back! The beaches on the grand stand are marvelous and the shows on Medieval Times is entertaining.
Maureen
Tuesday 14th of October 2014
Hi Alyson! Your posts are really great to read, like listening to you talk, I guess? Love the honesty and so much to see and read, I started reading but will have to work my way through the whole blog bit by bit. Nice to see some places we have been and many we haven't but are on the to go list. Like Australia, never been yet, so looking forward to see it. Anyway, thanks for sharing! Maureen
Sheryl Moriarty
Monday 10th of February 2014
Who knew!? I sure didn't. I grew up going to Myrtle Beach every summer and never knew it was a great place for sharks teeth. All I ever found was jellyfish! Enjoy your time in my home state.
alyson@worldtravelfamily
Monday 10th of February 2014
Hi Sheryl! I'd forgotten you were from down here. Love to the family and the homeschoolers!
Ron | Active Planet Travels
Monday 10th of February 2014
That's super cool! I've got quite a nice collection of fossilized sharks teeth myself. My favorites are the large ones (I was lucky enough to have acquired 3!). Continue to have a great time in Myrtle Beach, such a wonderful place it is! :-)