SOLOMONS, Md. – A 9-year-old boy who desires to be a paleontologist made a formidable discovery on Christmas Day due to a brand new present.

Molly Sampson needed a pair of insulated mountaineering boots for Christmas, and after unpacking them on Christmas morning, she and her household went to check them at Calvert Cliffs State Park in Maryland.

Molly, her father Bruce, and her older sister, Natalie, went fossil looking throughout low tide, and Molly discovered a once-in-a-lifetime discover: a five-inch, 15-million-year-old megalodon tooth.

“We’re wading via the water and I seemed into the water and I seemed into the water and I noticed it and I reached over and grabbed it,” Molly mentioned. NBC4.

Molly’s mom, Alicia Sampson, mentioned NPR She mentioned her husband had been fossil looking since childhood and dreamed of discovering large tooth, however his largest discover was a 3-inch tooth that seemed like a “milk tooth” in comparison with his daughter’s discovery.

Stephen Godfrey, curator of paleontology on the Calvert Maritime Museum in Solomons, Maryland, confirmed that the tooth is real.

“It is in all probability one of many bigger ones discovered alongside the Calvert Cliffs,” Godfrey informed NPR. He additionally mentioned it may very well be “a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.”

The tooth doubtless got here from the higher left jaw of a megalodon that was 45 to 50 toes lengthy and lived about 15 million years in the past, Godfrey informed NPR.

Megalodons hunted whales and dolphins. particular, serrated tooth and incapable of swallowing prey entire.

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