Beachgoers in North Topsail Beach and Surf City, North Carolina, have found something that belongs to prehistoric times. They have unearthed fossilized shark teeth some as big as an adult hand. The teeth belonged to a Megalodon, which became extinct around 2.6 million years ago.

Experts at the Aurora Fossil Museum in Aurora, North Carolina, have carried out comparative analysis of modern shark’s teeth and the one lately found from the beach. After the analysis, they have come to know that every inch of a fossilized tooth is equivalent to around 10 feet in shark.

A six-inch shark tooth was of a Megalodon, which was around 60 feet long. The recent find in North Carolina are some of only hundreds of Megalodon teeth that have ever been found. Cynthia Crane, director of the nearby Aurora Fossils Museum, was the one who has identified the find.

Study’s co-author Catalina Pimiento from the University of Florida and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama said, “Perhaps something was going on with the productivity and climate that produced that pattern, or with their prey and their competitors that made the species become large”.

An interesting fact has been unveiled by Discovery's Sharkopedia that Megalodon fossils were often mistaken for moon rocks, which have fallen to earth. Experts said the North Carolina coast is quite popular for fossilized teeth from the Megalodon.