Eleven-year-old Bo Bowers and his dad, Mike, were looking for shells on a beach when they spotted something much more unusual—a giant shark tooth. 

The Bowers, who live in Pennsylvania, made the discovery while on vacation in New Jersey.

“As I pulled a shell out of the one rock, there was a hole in the rock,” Mike Bowers told WTAE in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “I looked down, and I was just astonished, but I couldn’t fit my hand in there. So, of course, I’m screaming like a crazy man for my son Bo to come running over because of his small hand.”

“I was so excited,” Bo added. “I gave it to my dad and we almost fell to the ground.”

The family took the tooth to an expert from the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center and learned that their suspicions were correct. This wasn’t just any shark tooth. It had belonged to a large, prehistoric shark called a megalodon. Megalodon existed from about 23 million to 2 million years ago. Scientists believe that at up to 58 feet (17 meters) long, it was larger than any modern shark. Unsurprisingly, its teeth were enormous.

Because sharks can shed tens of thousands of teeth during their lifetimes, many people have found megalodon teeth. But the tooth in the Bowers’ possession is unusually large and well preserved.

It’s also fairly rare to find a megalodon tooth so far north. Only a handful of them have been found in the state, including the one the Bowers found.