YouTuber Morne Mamlambo stumbled upon a great white shark tooth estimated to be between five million and six million years old.

The New Zealander films as he carefully removes the fossilised tooth from its natural rock casing using an air scribe.

He told Newsflare: "I was out fossil hunting on a beach on the South Island of New Zealand when I saw something glinting between two large rocks.

"I picked it up and it was a large shark tooth embedded in a piece of rock. The geological layer is Late Miocene so between five million and six million years old which is used to estimate the age of the fossil.

"The tooth is from a great white shark, you can tell from the shape and the fact that it has faint serrations that have been worn away. Based on the size of the tooth, the shark would have been about 16 foot (5 metres) in length. It took two hours to free the tooth from the rock."

Mamlambo also adds that this is the biggest shark tooth he has found in all his years of fossil hunting.

This footage was filmed on February 6.

Edit: A paleontologist has identified this as a rare transitional tooth which is between the hastalis and great white species. This could well be a rare Carcharodus hubballi shark tooth.

I was out fossil hunting on a beach on the South Island of New Zealand when I saw something glinting between two large rocks. I picked it up and it was a large shark tooth embedded in a piece of rock. The geological layer is Late Miocene so between 5 and 6 million-years-old which is used to estimate the age of the fossil.

The tooth is from a Great White shark, you can tell from the shape and the fact that it has faint serrations that have been worn away. Based on the size of the tooth, the shark would have been about 16ft (5 meters) in length. It took 2 hours to free the tooth from the rock.

The tool I was using is called an air scribe which is like a tiny chisel moving in and out at 11 000 per minute.

The existing holes in the rock could have been caused by certain types of clam that burrow into the sediment or rock.

This is the biggest shark tooth I have found in my years of fossil hunting, large shark teeth are rare in New Zealand.


My name is Morne Mamlambo and I have a YouTube channel called Mamlambo Fossils where I find and prepare rare fossils.