iStockphoto / Flander
Searching for sharks teeth on the beaches in Southwest Florida has been a pastime for centuries. In recent decades, beaches that used to be the best in the world (like Caspersen Beach) have gone try due to erosion and ‘nourishment’ burying the sharks teeth under feet of fresh sand… But the sharks teeth are still out there if you know where to look.
About six years ago, I went fossiling with some friends on a portion of the Peace River near Arcadia which is at least an hour from the beach but millions of years ago was underwater and we hit the jackpot. Every bend in the river we’d stop and would find dozens of the best sharks teeth I’d ever seen in my life.
Florida Man Hits Jackpot Finding Sharks Teeth
It appears one redditor by the name of /u/Any_Topic_9705 found a similar spot. They shared their spoils on the ‘Fossil Hunting’ sub Reddit, saying they found all of these sharks teeth in a creek off the Peace River in Southwest Florida in one day.
Big pile of teeth from the bottom of the river yesterday 😁
byu/Any_Topic_9705 insharkteeth
According to the comments, he believed he found an array including “29 or so shark species. Plus whale, dolphin, camelid, horse, manatee, gator, croc, barracuda, stingray, eagle ray, pufferfish.”
To those wondering how these sharks teeth are found in a river, he points out that these teeth are likely from between 5 to 23 million years ago. The state of Florida was underwater somewhere between 2.5-4 million years ago and further back. At that point, everything we know here in the Sunshine State was underwater and sharks were everywhere. This is why construction zones are often hot spots for fossil hunting in Florida.
For those unclear on where to look around here in Southwest Florida, check out Relic Reef. You have to pay $ to get onto the property for a specified period of time but the sharks teeth they are finding there right now are insane.
Similarly, go canoeing on the Peace River. Start near Arcadia. Get fossil hunting gear. Scoop up rocks wherever the river bends and gets shallow. Thank me later. Don’t waste your time looking on the beaches!
Out of curiosity, I typed ‘Fossil Hunting Peace River’ into YouTube and found this video of how easy it is to track these spots down:
For context, this is what I found in one afternoon on the Peace River looking for sharks teeth here in Florida:
Cass Anderson
Fossil hunting is such an underrated outdoor activity!