World Record Shark Tooth
This incredible Great White Shark Tooth measures 69.56mm maximum slant length or around 2 3/4 Inches. This slant length measurement is the length of the tooth along its longest side from tip of tooth to tip of the gum.
This is a prime contender for the longest known modern shark tooth in the world and is the largest that we know that has verified measurement information using the accuracy of digital callipers to 1/100mm (or 1/100 inch). It is now owned and on display at the “Rodney Fox Shark Museum and Learning Centre”
Ancient white shark species did actually have larger primary teeth over 3” max. Slant length and the giant megalodon shark also of the Pliocene and Miocene epoch had teeth over 7” max slant length. We do also have fossil teeth of these ancient sharks on display in our shark museum.
We also know of a few other serious challengers for the title of “Worlds Largest Modern Shark Tooth” that are certainly within 1mm of this tooth also measuring around 2 3/4 inches in length.
These other teeth have usually just been measured visually against a ruler or we don’t currently have high precision accuracy recorded, so perhaps for now we can hold the length of these other teeth in some doubt until more exact measurements can be provided.
The tooth was discovered by shark enthusiast Stu Fordyce looking through an antique store in New Zealand and a CITES permit was required to get the tooth into Australia. Here verified measurements have been made and this record tooth has been expertly cast to make exact replicas from high grade dental materials. The Replica teeth are an exact copy of the tooth right down to the identical weight of the original and such museum grade copies are available for purchase upon request. (DM here)
The original history of the tooth still remains somewhat of a mystery. A large shark caught in Port Chalmers off the Otago coast, lower South Island New Zealand in 1894 has previously been suspected however upon analysis that shark doesn’t seem large enough to be the original tooth owner.
The Official verified measurements of the tooth are as follows.
UA1H:65.748mm
UA1W:42.596mm
UA1ED:55.648mm
UA1EM:52.69mm
UA1E1:42.112mm
UA1E43.244mm
Max. Slant Length 69.56mm
Weight:18 grams