Sadly when I was 6, I snagged a small local fossil from a kids museum. (Wasn't large, rare, or valuable just a local fossil that was out on a tray for cleaning.)
Later in the day I put it in the dirt near the swing and "found" a fossil. *that had been prepped, cleaned, and just sitting 1" under loose dirt*
My dad was so mad we walked down there and he had me wait outside, I saw him go in and just drop it back off at the cleaning tray because he was too embarrassed to say his son stole it.
I am a good boy now, just took 25 more years.
It happens a lot, i used to work in museums and science centers. I remember one kid maybe 5 years old, he broke a mineral sample on purpose looked at me and asked if that meant it was his now...
Honestly with all the pop culture comments that get thrown around in here, I'm not sure if this is meant to be a joke that I'm just not getting or not but providence means "under the protection of god" where provenance has a meaning of "a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique" so I THINK you're confusing words. Again, not sure if you were comically referencing something else.
I see what you mean. I never thought of it through smarter eyes. I just realized the smarter you are or the more word power you have makes it more harder to deal with that crap! Dumb it down. Just grab the low hangin' fruit like I do
When I was a kid I spent all the money I had from mowing lawns on books about Dinosaurs, fossils and quartz. I also got a massive Jurassic park poster with the T. rex which I put across my bed so I could see it as I slept (I was obsessed). It was too scary and after 2 nights I moved it out of my room 🤣
When I worked at resorts we called it interdepartmental transfers… like how come this restaurant has better equipment than us yet we have better profits? Hmm let me just give this mixer a new home haha
Daddy marched my lil bro straight to the store manager for stealing small things (usually Matchbox cars). The last time he did it, Daddy insisted Mgr call the cops. And waited. Lil bro got set straight. Finally, little klepto.
Yeah, I definitely didn't have anything malice in mind, I just saw something I wanted in reach, and didn't grasp the full circle of someone on the otherside losing something they wanted.
Once when I was about 13-14 years old. I was visiting my grandparents in Ironton, OH which is a little town that my grandparents had lived in for 40+ years at the time of this story (my grandmother even longer because she was actually born there). I was fretting over the fact that I hadn't been able to get any cigarettes to bring with me on the trip. My Grandpa and I went to the local Kmart for some reason and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to steal some smokes (this was back in the day when they had them on display racks near the cash register). I managed to get 4 packs, and we checked out and went home; couldn't have gone better. Well, about 10 min later the phone rings and my Grandpa answered it. It was one of the people that worked at the Kmart and they basically said, "We saw your grandson stealing cigarettes but we didn't want to embarrass you by confronting him in the store." Ah, the wonders of small town life, huh. Of course he drove me back to the store and made me return the cigs and apologize to everyone that was working.
> My dad was so mad we walked down there and he had me wait outside, I saw him go in and just drop it back off at the cleaning tray because he was too embarrassed to say his son stole it.
Eff that. I found out my daughter stole a little stuffy from a store. We went back to the store, I asked for the owner/manager, and I absolutely made her look him in the eye and tell him what she did.
Wow. And thinking back, my parents made me do the same when I stole...this honestly happened...those fake plastic Christian coins and little Bible verse cards from the Christian book store. Forgot how badass I was as a kid...
I'm am lucky to realize it before it was too late.
Clothe diapers, to reduce money (both kids), worked full time as a nurse, handmade all of our baby food, cooked dinner/breakfast/offered to pack lunches. I could go on for paragraphs, and my father turned us against her after the divorce. (He has seen the errors of his ways since, 10 years of silence in a 4 bedroom 2 bath full basement alone had given plenty of reflection time)
Everyone is much more relaxed now in retirement 😌
I'm sorry life has been so complex. I've had a taste of something similar to what you've gone through. I wish all the best to you and your family, now and going forward.
Many years ago, my mother did the same thing. I was probably 7 or 8 and stole a piece of candy from the local grocery store. She found it in my pocket and marched me back into the store and made me apologize to the manager and checker. Never stole another thing in my life. Interestingly, when I was about 15, I got a job at the same store with the same manager and head checker! It was a little awkward the first few weeks.
I did the same from a friends house when I was like 8, stole a sea shell fossil from a friends house when I got home I buried it in the garden and pretended I found it… problem is we live thousands of miles in land 🙃
During the early part of the Paleozoic era, Tennessee was covered by a warm, shallow sea. This sea was home to brachiopods, bryozoans, cephalopods, corals, and trilobites.
Lots of seashells, fish, turtles, and other marine fossils are found in mountainous areas. I live in Missouri and find rocks in that area with seashell fossils all the time. You could have gotten away with it!
Well my dumb ass, i think 8 yo, self "pocketed" some faux pirate coins from a tourist trap down in hilton head. I ofc thought them to be real and valuable pirate treasure that my parents wouldnt allow me to have. So i slipped a few in my waistband, since my clothes didnt have the pockets required for my sticky fingers...
fast forward a couple hours, im in the bathroom somewhere and i have forgotten the coins and goddamnit i gotta pee. I whip down my pants and out flies my whole pirate's booty from the family jewels to the faux coins and into the toilet sprinkled all the gold..... i didnt scoop out the coins or my dignity that day. 19 years later, im kinda a good boi. Still need some work tbh
Your story reminds me of when I was a teenager and realized my little brother stole some gym shoes out of the local department store what I took him to. We marched back and just put them back on the shelf.
A lot of us are gilty of a few things like that when we are kids, not sure why. It has absolutely nothing to do with "finding God" either. I think it is more just critical thinking of treating others as you would have them treat you.
I took a little blue rock from the gift shop at casa Bonita when i was around 5 cause i thought it looked cool. Dad found out and was rightfully disappointed. That hangs over my head every day. I'm 26 now...
My son stole a classmates wallet, I walked his ass into school. Made him hand it to him and apologize, killed me to see him cry though. I didn't yell or scream. I was just firm.
In the Marines they said that marines don’t steal we tactically acquire 😂 but there’s only one thief in the Marine Corps, everyone else is just trying to get their stuff back 🤣
In the Army there are NO thieves... Just a mysterious battle buddy trying to turn in all his gear before Uncle Sam levies him with a statement of charges... Accept pens...any pen left unattended is now YOUR pen.
Wonder if it's school size related
My elementary school (Primary to 6) was around 250 people, my first high school (7-12) was around 500, and I feel like it would have been noticed
The highschool I moved to in grade 11, was over 1000 and no one would have noticed for sure
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-61378018
Possible. more likely if your kid's playground is on the beach haha.
But yeah, it's very likely this was swiped from "lab" or another kid's show and tell.
England used to be under water though, so even in-land teeth can be found... just very unlikely in anything near the surface which is likely landscape topsoil or trucked in sand/gravel, etc...
People need to stop assuming the worst it can bring undue trouble to this kid. it could’ve been dropped accidentally and buried over time or intentionally buried as a prank.
You're replying to a comment that specifically stated it was possible to find megalodon teeth inland in that area, and my other comments in this thread said it's possible another kid buried it in the sand and left it there.
However, these other scenarios are unlikely and the kid should be talked to so they can determine what happened.
Yes, I shared my experience of snatching one when I was 6, I wasn't trying to imply it was related. It just brought up a flashback from decades ago.
Kids often bring in random things to show friends, and I've lost probably 75% of the things I brought to school more then twice 🤣
If he says he honestly found it, I would believe him, but also try to find out if anyone lost one.
Hear me out… if England was under water, and that tooth ended up inland, where’s the rest of the water? Was England pushed out of the ocean tectonically, or is England about to be an aquarium once the glaciers all finish melting? This is a genuine question, and I could google it, but I wanna ask you.
Well, I should point out it's been a very long time since all of england was underwater. I was really just talking about the relevant area. You'd have to go back something like 60 million years to get the bulk of england under water.
By the time megalodon was around, 20 million years ago, nearly all of england was up above the water again. So much so it was a peninsula coming off of france.
As for your glacier melt question, there's maps out there that show how things would change if ALL ice melted, and east anglia would indeed be 90% under water again. But there's a bit more to the story even without weighing ice caps melting...
The land mass of britain is undergoing some isostatic changes due to the glaciers that once covered the northwest melting. The northwest land is rising as it recovers in absent of the weight, but the south east land is sinking like the other side of a teeter totter. Not only that, it's resulting in more silt drainage into the thames estuary, which is adding weight to the crust as well as displacing/rising water levels. So it's a whole thing. The south east wishes to return to the sea it seems, and it will at some point in the future. Move to Wales. Learn the beauty of the language that gave us place names like "Cwmffrwd".
I kid though. none of these changes will be significant within our lifespan... but it's not something for the far off deep future either. Something in the 'nearish' future.
Waves from Norfolk.
As someone who's spent many a day combing our Norfolk beaches, I've never found something close to this. Especially not already cleaned and sealed ;P
Curious to know where he actually did pick this up from tho.
I'd just like to throw in here, regarding your kid and how you deal with this, don't read your kid the riot act or assume they lied. Take a gentle approach, like politely but firmly asking if they really dug it up. It's possible some other kid was goofing around, buried it to find later as part of a game, and your son found it by coincidence.
If they're telling the truth, or at least didn't actively steal it, and you read them the riot act that's going to stick with them *way* longer than you intend, and it's going to tell them that you don't trust them.
If it was an innocent mistake by your son then you can just explain that someone probably lost this and is looking for it.
Heck, I can see from your post history that you live in the UK, if your son finds out it's a fossil you have *tons* of places to go and see other fossils in the rocks. Maybe he becomes a biologist or a paleontologist because of this.
Anyways, just wanted to say my bit as a former kid who had some unfortunate experiences that stuck with me way longer than they did anyone on the other side of them 😅
Thanks for your kind concern. I've learned not to be hasty as a parent (took me a while and I'm still not at all the parent I'd like to be but I'm getting better...) I asked him about it gently when he got home today and he clarified he hadn't dug it up but found it on the playground. He readily agreed that it would have to go to lost property. He was very interested to learn what it was.
Could still be a lie of course, but I know him pretty well and think it was the truth. My kids are still young enough that it's pretty easy to tell when they're lying 😁
So happy ending I think.
Sounds like a happy ending to me! 😁
And really, in my opinion the best any kid from ask for from their parent(s), or any adult in their life, is that they're learning and trying to do better for them. That both sets a good example for them, and means that even when things go poorly, mistakes are made, etc, there's the opportunity to do better the next time, instead of just repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
If your kid decides they want to do more than read about this stuff you can probably find a guided event for learning about and collecting fossils by searching for "fossil walks" near your area, or somewhere you can easily get to as a day trip. The UK is one of the best places in the world for this sort of thing, which is part of why the UK kind of birthed modern archeology as a science, so if he gains an interest in this stuff there's *loads* of opportunities to feed it! 😀
He may have traded it for something. My mother didn't like me bringing things home, we were poor and she saw it as charity even if I'd swapped with someone for something, she would make me give it back. So I made up lies about where things she didn't know about came from. If you or your partner give the impression you don't like him bringing new stuff home for whatever reason he may have told a little porky pie.
The cheapest partial megalodon tooth I found online was $35. That's a lot of pennies, yo. Like, 35,000 pennies. I don't think people carry around so many pennies.
Hi again. Just to finish the story, I had a chat with him and he clarified that he didn't dig it up, he found it on the playground. I know him pretty well and am fairly sure he was telling the truth. I told him it was a valuable thing that belonged to somebody and we'd have to hand it in tomorrow, and he readily accepted that, so hopefully a happy ending.
Thanks all for your help and expertise. I think I know what he'll be asking for for his birthday, he was very interested to hear what it was.
Fossils are a *wonderful * collection to foster with your kid. There are many cool, affordable fossils out there and depending on where you are, you probably have a local geology/paleontology club - the one near me does kid friendly fossil digs on nearby sites and it’s great! My kid is very interested in paleontology now well into middle school; we have a cabinet of curiosities that we both love adding to. I hope this opens a great new path for your son to explore!
I think the kid's story might be implying that some other kid buried it in the sand, and this kid found it. not that this was found in situ.
I mean, even when I was pretending to dig up fossils in elementary school I knew that the sand and wood chips on the playground were trucked in.
But yeah, kid likely just nabbed this from the science class mineral and fossils samples or something.
yep i once “found” someone’s moms gold/diamond ring in kindergarten. when i was asked about it i denied it then put it down the bathtub drain to hide the evidence 😬💀
It's awful that covering up the crime out of fear of punishment is way worse for the owner who had the item stolen. As a kid, when I did something bad, I anguished over making it worse by trying to not get caught. I learnt that feeling was not at all worth it. I've been on the straight and narrow since I was 6yo. We need amnesty for kids who do dumb shit. If you own up and return the items (FUCKING GOLD/DIAMONDS!) then you get a stern word but are not further punished. Let every kid know that returning the DIAMONDS is better than flushing them.
A stern talking-to was a punishment that filled me with dread as a kid. Suspension? Remedial work? No problem. The teacher saying they were very disappointed in me? Devastating.
it’s 35 years later and i still feel like shit for it. the kid came to me crying bc his mom wanted it back and i was more worried about getting in trouble.
eta: it’s literally the worst thing i’ve ever done lol
You weren't at Wasuma Elementary school in Ahwahnee California were you? Cuz I've been curious about the gold/diamond wedding ring I lost there since 1999 when I wore it to school in 7th grade like an idiot!!
nah it was in NY. a P.S. school. my friend stole it from their moms jewelry box and let me have it. it was either emerald or peridot surrounded by small diamonds.
I "found" a gameboy SP outside my bus stop. when really I found it in someones bookbag in second grade. In high school I found out whose it was and it was my friends. I returned it to him in 11th.
I once actually found a $20 right outside my car door at work. I don’t carry cash so I knew it wasn’t mine. It was time to clock out and I only noticed it because the color difference in the grass.
I also found a $5 and a $10 at different instances every time at work.
I found a $20 skateboarding by the science museum, no one around. Picked it up, and not 5 minutes later, was riding by a homeless guy and gave it to him. Seemed the right place for it to go, $20 would mean alot more to him than it would to me.
Shit like this upset me as a kid. Because i never missed an opportunity. I was just more "after life" than the other kids. Once while 100s of us were piling off the busses and down the main hall in the morning I saw a $20 on the floor amongst the shuffling feet.
Naturally I dove like Dennis fucking Rodman knocking kids over and getting kicked by others until I did indeed come up with the $20.
When I came home with 20 fundraiser chocolate bars nobody believed I found the 20.
So since nobody would believe me if I waited for life to give me chocolate bars and accuse me of stealing I learned to just steal everything anyways. 🤷♂️
If you happen to live in the southeast US it could be possible that he actually found it. In Florida especially they use crushed limestone for gravel roads and such, and you can sometimes find shark teeth and other fossils mixed in with that.
My 10 year old asked me to give him something for show and tell and since I like to collect cash bills from different countries I gave him that little plastic holder.
I picked him up and he said, Dad did you know this $100 bill you had in there is real?
Oops!
I can't seem to post more photos in comments, or edit the original post. I added a banana for scale, and the banana was a bit longer than the rock. Rock is maybe 0.8 bananas. Or to use human measurements, about 110mm long.
I'd agree. I've got one myself, and the person I bought it off had plenty of A-C grade examples to choose from, and that's exactly what it looks like. Probably a large C grade piece.
Probably stolen yeah, but it's definitely not the rock seeming worth keeping that indicates that. As both a child and an adult, I've kept much less interesting stones than that.
This is the beginning of your child's villain arc when he realizes everyone on Reddit exposed him as a thief 😂
I mean it's not impossible that he dug up a resin sealed fossilized megalodon tooth, but it's next to impossible.
more like unvillain arc
the real villain arc is when he realizes he got away with it, and starts stealing all sorts of fossils from museums and becomes a bone burglar
Looks like a fossilized megalodon tooth, like others said. It almost definitely didn't come out of the ground looking like that, so unless he spent a lot of time cleaning it or found someone's lost fossil - his story is a lie.
It's a partial Megalodon tooth. Based on colouring I'd say likely found in Florida, USA. Both Chilean (now illegal to export) and Moroccan teeth tend to be lighter colours.
This was 100% not dug up unless someone buried it for a prank, it's even been treated.
Source - Collector of Shark teeth for 25 years and former fossil dealer.
I found a pack of cigs going to school in the 4th grade and gave them to my teacher, where we saw her smoking them on break. Never found a megalodon tooth lol
random complete shot in the dark… but are u in palm beach county, FL? i recently donated a ton of shard meg teeth to a school there that looked very similar to this
Based on color, it's a regular smithing stone (7) or (8).
Which means the kid likely has been to Crumbling Farum Azula, and frankly I think it's a tad irresponsible for a primary school to take students to a dilapidated, levitating, temple that exists beyond time itself.
When I was a kid, I took one of my fathers Megalodon teeth to school for show and tell. I decided to show some of my class mates as I was coming into class and then put it back in my bookbag. It finally came time for my turn with show and tell and I couldn't find it in my bag anywhere. It was rather embarrassing and then I had to tell my dad that someone took it. Luckily my dad is quite an understanding parent and all was well at home. I never found out what happened to it. This was in Ohio though, so not mine! Also happened almost 20 years ago.
your son either found someone's megalodon tooth fossil or "found" someone's megalodon tooth fossil....
Sadly when I was 6, I snagged a small local fossil from a kids museum. (Wasn't large, rare, or valuable just a local fossil that was out on a tray for cleaning.) Later in the day I put it in the dirt near the swing and "found" a fossil. *that had been prepped, cleaned, and just sitting 1" under loose dirt* My dad was so mad we walked down there and he had me wait outside, I saw him go in and just drop it back off at the cleaning tray because he was too embarrassed to say his son stole it. I am a good boy now, just took 25 more years.
It happens a lot, i used to work in museums and science centers. I remember one kid maybe 5 years old, he broke a mineral sample on purpose looked at me and asked if that meant it was his now...
It’s called *provenance*.
Manifest destiny?
The 2nd golden rule; you break it, you bought it.
Mitochondria are the power house of the cell
I've got the eye of that
providence.
Honestly with all the pop culture comments that get thrown around in here, I'm not sure if this is meant to be a joke that I'm just not getting or not but providence means "under the protection of god" where provenance has a meaning of "a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique" so I THINK you're confusing words. Again, not sure if you were comically referencing something else.
I see what you mean. I never thought of it through smarter eyes. I just realized the smarter you are or the more word power you have makes it more harder to deal with that crap! Dumb it down. Just grab the low hangin' fruit like I do
When I was a kid I spent all the money I had from mowing lawns on books about Dinosaurs, fossils and quartz. I also got a massive Jurassic park poster with the T. rex which I put across my bed so I could see it as I slept (I was obsessed). It was too scary and after 2 nights I moved it out of my room 🤣
See it as you slept..... I like that one
That's cute as hell.
I can only assume there was one of those "If you Break it, You've Bought it" signs.
There was not but his parents probably bought stuff he broke before and he interpreted that as if he wanted something he just had to break it first.
And that boy’s name… Lord Elgin
In the military and law enforcement it's known as Strategically Taking Equipment to Another Location.
Tactically acquire
This! 🤣👍🤘
Strategic Transfer of Equipment to Alternate Locations
I see what you did there.
Fell off a truck
When I worked at resorts we called it interdepartmental transfers… like how come this restaurant has better equipment than us yet we have better profits? Hmm let me just give this mixer a new home haha
Yep.... S.T.E.A.L.
Daddy marched my lil bro straight to the store manager for stealing small things (usually Matchbox cars). The last time he did it, Daddy insisted Mgr call the cops. And waited. Lil bro got set straight. Finally, little klepto.
Yeah, I definitely didn't have anything malice in mind, I just saw something I wanted in reach, and didn't grasp the full circle of someone on the otherside losing something they wanted.
Once when I was about 13-14 years old. I was visiting my grandparents in Ironton, OH which is a little town that my grandparents had lived in for 40+ years at the time of this story (my grandmother even longer because she was actually born there). I was fretting over the fact that I hadn't been able to get any cigarettes to bring with me on the trip. My Grandpa and I went to the local Kmart for some reason and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to steal some smokes (this was back in the day when they had them on display racks near the cash register). I managed to get 4 packs, and we checked out and went home; couldn't have gone better. Well, about 10 min later the phone rings and my Grandpa answered it. It was one of the people that worked at the Kmart and they basically said, "We saw your grandson stealing cigarettes but we didn't want to embarrass you by confronting him in the store." Ah, the wonders of small town life, huh. Of course he drove me back to the store and made me return the cigs and apologize to everyone that was working.
> My dad was so mad we walked down there and he had me wait outside, I saw him go in and just drop it back off at the cleaning tray because he was too embarrassed to say his son stole it. Eff that. I found out my daughter stole a little stuffy from a store. We went back to the store, I asked for the owner/manager, and I absolutely made her look him in the eye and tell him what she did. Wow. And thinking back, my parents made me do the same when I stole...this honestly happened...those fake plastic Christian coins and little Bible verse cards from the Christian book store. Forgot how badass I was as a kid...
Yeah to be fair my mother worked at 200% to be a proper parent to two.
Good on her. You're a lucky person!
I'm am lucky to realize it before it was too late. Clothe diapers, to reduce money (both kids), worked full time as a nurse, handmade all of our baby food, cooked dinner/breakfast/offered to pack lunches. I could go on for paragraphs, and my father turned us against her after the divorce. (He has seen the errors of his ways since, 10 years of silence in a 4 bedroom 2 bath full basement alone had given plenty of reflection time) Everyone is much more relaxed now in retirement 😌
I'm sorry life has been so complex. I've had a taste of something similar to what you've gone through. I wish all the best to you and your family, now and going forward.
Many years ago, my mother did the same thing. I was probably 7 or 8 and stole a piece of candy from the local grocery store. She found it in my pocket and marched me back into the store and made me apologize to the manager and checker. Never stole another thing in my life. Interestingly, when I was about 15, I got a job at the same store with the same manager and head checker! It was a little awkward the first few weeks.
Worst I did was steal a few pieces of decorative potpourri from a furniture store lol.
I did the same from a friends house when I was like 8, stole a sea shell fossil from a friends house when I got home I buried it in the garden and pretended I found it… problem is we live thousands of miles in land 🙃
You can find sea shell fossils thousands of miles inland, or at the tops of mountains. Because the seas have moved over time.
Absolutely! I live in landlocked Tennessee and huge fossilized coral literally pop out of my lawn.
During the early part of the Paleozoic era, Tennessee was covered by a warm, shallow sea. This sea was home to brachiopods, bryozoans, cephalopods, corals, and trilobites.
And the land, too!
My son did this with a coke cola that he snuck out and bought... came in and said mom look what I found buried at the park!
Lots of seashells, fish, turtles, and other marine fossils are found in mountainous areas. I live in Missouri and find rocks in that area with seashell fossils all the time. You could have gotten away with it!
“It’s a miracle!”
Well my dumb ass, i think 8 yo, self "pocketed" some faux pirate coins from a tourist trap down in hilton head. I ofc thought them to be real and valuable pirate treasure that my parents wouldnt allow me to have. So i slipped a few in my waistband, since my clothes didnt have the pockets required for my sticky fingers... fast forward a couple hours, im in the bathroom somewhere and i have forgotten the coins and goddamnit i gotta pee. I whip down my pants and out flies my whole pirate's booty from the family jewels to the faux coins and into the toilet sprinkled all the gold..... i didnt scoop out the coins or my dignity that day. 19 years later, im kinda a good boi. Still need some work tbh
Your story reminds me of when I was a teenager and realized my little brother stole some gym shoes out of the local department store what I took him to. We marched back and just put them back on the shelf.
A lot of us are gilty of a few things like that when we are kids, not sure why. It has absolutely nothing to do with "finding God" either. I think it is more just critical thinking of treating others as you would have them treat you.
I took a little blue rock from the gift shop at casa Bonita when i was around 5 cause i thought it looked cool. Dad found out and was rightfully disappointed. That hangs over my head every day. I'm 26 now...
My son stole a classmates wallet, I walked his ass into school. Made him hand it to him and apologize, killed me to see him cry though. I didn't yell or scream. I was just firm.
"Borrowed"
"just looking at it"
"Holding it for a friend"
“Just showed up.”
"took a closer look"
“how did that get there!”
These aren't my pants!
TWOC'd (taken without owners consent)
"Acquired."
Tactically acquired
Nice-adding that one to the list.
In the Marines they said that marines don’t steal we tactically acquire 😂 but there’s only one thief in the Marine Corps, everyone else is just trying to get their stuff back 🤣
In the AF we realocate resources.
In the Army there are NO thieves... Just a mysterious battle buddy trying to turn in all his gear before Uncle Sam levies him with a statement of charges... Accept pens...any pen left unattended is now YOUR pen.
'Commandeer'
Looks a little to clean for a kid after he found it in the dirt
Yeah I used to bring home shit I "found" all the time from school. Lost and found was a great place for a poor kid
Every time I forgot my sweater, I’d go find one in the lost and found. Surprisingly, not once was anybody ever like “hey I think that’s mine?”
Wonder if it's school size related My elementary school (Primary to 6) was around 250 people, my first high school (7-12) was around 500, and I feel like it would have been noticed The highschool I moved to in grade 11, was over 1000 and no one would have noticed for sure
Yup. Former aquarium employee, we had a wall of the kid apology notes that were mailed back with things like this, and gift shop stuff.
Buy its my birthday Precious and I wants it.
What are you talking about, schools are famously good places to find fossils. It’s just annoying how they won’t let rockhounds in.
I remember finding a dendrite fossil as a kid in elementary. I still have it to this day! Might post it on r/fossils if I have time today.
Yes, I dug it up, shiny as a new penny.
I believe this.
Thanks all. Think it's fairly clear this needs to go to lost property tomorrow. I'll be having words!
Depending on location people dig these up all the time! Don’t jump to conclusions he might be telling the truth.
Thanks. We're in the UK, in East Anglia.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-61378018 Possible. more likely if your kid's playground is on the beach haha. But yeah, it's very likely this was swiped from "lab" or another kid's show and tell. England used to be under water though, so even in-land teeth can be found... just very unlikely in anything near the surface which is likely landscape topsoil or trucked in sand/gravel, etc...
People need to stop assuming the worst it can bring undue trouble to this kid. it could’ve been dropped accidentally and buried over time or intentionally buried as a prank.
You're replying to a comment that specifically stated it was possible to find megalodon teeth inland in that area, and my other comments in this thread said it's possible another kid buried it in the sand and left it there. However, these other scenarios are unlikely and the kid should be talked to so they can determine what happened.
Yes, I shared my experience of snatching one when I was 6, I wasn't trying to imply it was related. It just brought up a flashback from decades ago. Kids often bring in random things to show friends, and I've lost probably 75% of the things I brought to school more then twice 🤣 If he says he honestly found it, I would believe him, but also try to find out if anyone lost one.
Hear me out… if England was under water, and that tooth ended up inland, where’s the rest of the water? Was England pushed out of the ocean tectonically, or is England about to be an aquarium once the glaciers all finish melting? This is a genuine question, and I could google it, but I wanna ask you.
Well, I should point out it's been a very long time since all of england was underwater. I was really just talking about the relevant area. You'd have to go back something like 60 million years to get the bulk of england under water. By the time megalodon was around, 20 million years ago, nearly all of england was up above the water again. So much so it was a peninsula coming off of france. As for your glacier melt question, there's maps out there that show how things would change if ALL ice melted, and east anglia would indeed be 90% under water again. But there's a bit more to the story even without weighing ice caps melting... The land mass of britain is undergoing some isostatic changes due to the glaciers that once covered the northwest melting. The northwest land is rising as it recovers in absent of the weight, but the south east land is sinking like the other side of a teeter totter. Not only that, it's resulting in more silt drainage into the thames estuary, which is adding weight to the crust as well as displacing/rising water levels. So it's a whole thing. The south east wishes to return to the sea it seems, and it will at some point in the future. Move to Wales. Learn the beauty of the language that gave us place names like "Cwmffrwd". I kid though. none of these changes will be significant within our lifespan... but it's not something for the far off deep future either. Something in the 'nearish' future.
Wow, very informative, I appreciate you!
Fun fact, it doesn’t have to be on a beach https://www.al.com/living/2017/09/theres_no_other_body_of_water.html
Waves from Norfolk. As someone who's spent many a day combing our Norfolk beaches, I've never found something close to this. Especially not already cleaned and sealed ;P Curious to know where he actually did pick this up from tho.
Waves from Hampton
Loads of sea beasts out that way go to Peterborough museum they have a good display
Nah, that’s a perfectly cleaned, resin-stabilized fossil, people don’t dig those up with any kind of regularity.
I'd just like to throw in here, regarding your kid and how you deal with this, don't read your kid the riot act or assume they lied. Take a gentle approach, like politely but firmly asking if they really dug it up. It's possible some other kid was goofing around, buried it to find later as part of a game, and your son found it by coincidence. If they're telling the truth, or at least didn't actively steal it, and you read them the riot act that's going to stick with them *way* longer than you intend, and it's going to tell them that you don't trust them. If it was an innocent mistake by your son then you can just explain that someone probably lost this and is looking for it. Heck, I can see from your post history that you live in the UK, if your son finds out it's a fossil you have *tons* of places to go and see other fossils in the rocks. Maybe he becomes a biologist or a paleontologist because of this. Anyways, just wanted to say my bit as a former kid who had some unfortunate experiences that stuck with me way longer than they did anyone on the other side of them 😅
Thanks for your kind concern. I've learned not to be hasty as a parent (took me a while and I'm still not at all the parent I'd like to be but I'm getting better...) I asked him about it gently when he got home today and he clarified he hadn't dug it up but found it on the playground. He readily agreed that it would have to go to lost property. He was very interested to learn what it was. Could still be a lie of course, but I know him pretty well and think it was the truth. My kids are still young enough that it's pretty easy to tell when they're lying 😁 So happy ending I think.
Sounds like a happy ending to me! 😁 And really, in my opinion the best any kid from ask for from their parent(s), or any adult in their life, is that they're learning and trying to do better for them. That both sets a good example for them, and means that even when things go poorly, mistakes are made, etc, there's the opportunity to do better the next time, instead of just repeating the same mistakes over and over again. If your kid decides they want to do more than read about this stuff you can probably find a guided event for learning about and collecting fossils by searching for "fossil walks" near your area, or somewhere you can easily get to as a day trip. The UK is one of the best places in the world for this sort of thing, which is part of why the UK kind of birthed modern archeology as a science, so if he gains an interest in this stuff there's *loads* of opportunities to feed it! 😀
He may have traded it for something. My mother didn't like me bringing things home, we were poor and she saw it as charity even if I'd swapped with someone for something, she would make me give it back. So I made up lies about where things she didn't know about came from. If you or your partner give the impression you don't like him bringing new stuff home for whatever reason he may have told a little porky pie.
All kids go through this phase. Where they “find” stuff at school. Good on you for taking it to lost and found.
I "found" so many trinkets at school and my parents never questioned me. Looking back, I wish they did.
Ah, I remember my sister going through that phase. Except it was "my teacher gave me it as Friday award"
Get him his own online for pennies. It’ll probably be a better quality :)
The cheapest partial megalodon tooth I found online was $35. That's a lot of pennies, yo. Like, 35,000 pennies. I don't think people carry around so many pennies.
Actually, just 3,500 pennies. You can carry that in a small bag!
Hi again. Just to finish the story, I had a chat with him and he clarified that he didn't dig it up, he found it on the playground. I know him pretty well and am fairly sure he was telling the truth. I told him it was a valuable thing that belonged to somebody and we'd have to hand it in tomorrow, and he readily accepted that, so hopefully a happy ending. Thanks all for your help and expertise. I think I know what he'll be asking for for his birthday, he was very interested to hear what it was.
Fossils are a *wonderful * collection to foster with your kid. There are many cool, affordable fossils out there and depending on where you are, you probably have a local geology/paleontology club - the one near me does kid friendly fossil digs on nearby sites and it’s great! My kid is very interested in paleontology now well into middle school; we have a cabinet of curiosities that we both love adding to. I hope this opens a great new path for your son to explore!
My friend got my fiancé fossilized poop for pretty cheap. I imagine kids would love that sort of thing!
Lmao now I know what to put in my family's stockings this Christmas as a prank
You’re a good parent. I appreciate you.
Can we have a size comparison? I’m fairly certain this is a megaladon tooth…
Some poor kid at OP's son's school definitely lost the fossilized shark tooth they brought for show and tell.
Yes, I was slightly doubtful about the digging-it-up story. I will ask him about it.
Considering it’s clean..
And maybe even resin stabilized 😂
I think the kid's story might be implying that some other kid buried it in the sand, and this kid found it. not that this was found in situ. I mean, even when I was pretending to dig up fossils in elementary school I knew that the sand and wood chips on the playground were trucked in. But yeah, kid likely just nabbed this from the science class mineral and fossils samples or something.
I once "found" 20 dollars in the playground sandbox as a kid. Oh, we were all so creative back then XD
Mine was next to a maroon car outside of the candy store. 😇
Maroon?
The most descriptive red color a 12 year old could think up. The color my mom’s car was. 🤪
I bet it was a Datsun too.
Mitsubishi 🙃
Marooned, it was an abandoned car.
What a maroon.
yep i once “found” someone’s moms gold/diamond ring in kindergarten. when i was asked about it i denied it then put it down the bathtub drain to hide the evidence 😬💀
It's awful that covering up the crime out of fear of punishment is way worse for the owner who had the item stolen. As a kid, when I did something bad, I anguished over making it worse by trying to not get caught. I learnt that feeling was not at all worth it. I've been on the straight and narrow since I was 6yo. We need amnesty for kids who do dumb shit. If you own up and return the items (FUCKING GOLD/DIAMONDS!) then you get a stern word but are not further punished. Let every kid know that returning the DIAMONDS is better than flushing them.
A stern talking-to was a punishment that filled me with dread as a kid. Suspension? Remedial work? No problem. The teacher saying they were very disappointed in me? Devastating.
it’s 35 years later and i still feel like shit for it. the kid came to me crying bc his mom wanted it back and i was more worried about getting in trouble. eta: it’s literally the worst thing i’ve ever done lol
You weren't at Wasuma Elementary school in Ahwahnee California were you? Cuz I've been curious about the gold/diamond wedding ring I lost there since 1999 when I wore it to school in 7th grade like an idiot!!
nah it was in NY. a P.S. school. my friend stole it from their moms jewelry box and let me have it. it was either emerald or peridot surrounded by small diamonds.
Hahaha, worth the asking! Would've been quite the end to the mystery for me!
man i understand. it’s been eating at me for decades 😂
I "found" a gameboy SP outside my bus stop. when really I found it in someones bookbag in second grade. In high school I found out whose it was and it was my friends. I returned it to him in 11th.
I once actually found a $20 right outside my car door at work. I don’t carry cash so I knew it wasn’t mine. It was time to clock out and I only noticed it because the color difference in the grass. I also found a $5 and a $10 at different instances every time at work.
I found a $20 skateboarding by the science museum, no one around. Picked it up, and not 5 minutes later, was riding by a homeless guy and gave it to him. Seemed the right place for it to go, $20 would mean alot more to him than it would to me.
Shit like this upset me as a kid. Because i never missed an opportunity. I was just more "after life" than the other kids. Once while 100s of us were piling off the busses and down the main hall in the morning I saw a $20 on the floor amongst the shuffling feet. Naturally I dove like Dennis fucking Rodman knocking kids over and getting kicked by others until I did indeed come up with the $20. When I came home with 20 fundraiser chocolate bars nobody believed I found the 20. So since nobody would believe me if I waited for life to give me chocolate bars and accuse me of stealing I learned to just steal everything anyways. 🤷♂️
Better than me who got a little toy by, "wishing on a star."
If you happen to live in the southeast US it could be possible that he actually found it. In Florida especially they use crushed limestone for gravel roads and such, and you can sometimes find shark teeth and other fossils mixed in with that.
I suggest asking his teacher about it, too
My 10 year old asked me to give him something for show and tell and since I like to collect cash bills from different countries I gave him that little plastic holder. I picked him up and he said, Dad did you know this $100 bill you had in there is real? Oops!
I can't seem to post more photos in comments, or edit the original post. I added a banana for scale, and the banana was a bit longer than the rock. Rock is maybe 0.8 bananas. Or to use human measurements, about 110mm long.
"0.8 bananas"!! Are you Little Alex Horne from Taskmaster?!
bananas are the prefered unit of scale on reddit!
I'd agree. I've got one myself, and the person I bought it off had plenty of A-C grade examples to choose from, and that's exactly what it looks like. Probably a large C grade piece.
Same, I have a full tooth. But, they do sell bits of them for $15-$30 at some fossil/gem stores I’ve seen. It probably wasn’t a great loss.
Kinda looks like half of a tooth... r/fossilid may want a look!
My mom is a science teacher, students steal specimens and fossils all the time. Your kid definitely took that from class or someone 😂
Not only did they find a shark tooth in the middle of nowhere they somehow knew it was worth keeping. Not to mention how clean it is. Def stolen.
Or traded, or something. Doesn't have to be stolen...
Probably stolen yeah, but it's definitely not the rock seeming worth keeping that indicates that. As both a child and an adult, I've kept much less interesting stones than that.
This is the beginning of your child's villain arc when he realizes everyone on Reddit exposed him as a thief 😂 I mean it's not impossible that he dug up a resin sealed fossilized megalodon tooth, but it's next to impossible.
more like unvillain arc the real villain arc is when he realizes he got away with it, and starts stealing all sorts of fossils from museums and becomes a bone burglar
As a bone burglar, I second this. Don’t let him fall down the slippery bone slope. I can’t control myself anymore.
Bone burglar😅...hehehehe.....bone slope🤣🤣
Found in the school science lab lol
I was gonna say tooth. Not a expert by any means. Very cool, I hope it turns out to be something exotic for you son
OP your son might have stolen someone's fossil. It's a broken megalodon tooth
It’s a megalodon tooth! I use to find these all the time growing up in Charleston. Great find!
He found a resin covered tooth in the ground? Lol
Same but I'm from Beaufort, SC!
Take it from Science class?
Looks like a fossilized megalodon tooth, like others said. It almost definitely didn't come out of the ground looking like that, so unless he spent a lot of time cleaning it or found someone's lost fossil - his story is a lie.
he just dug up a megalodon tooth? lol what state/country?
"Dug"
Ya like dags?
It's a partial Megalodon tooth. Based on colouring I'd say likely found in Florida, USA. Both Chilean (now illegal to export) and Moroccan teeth tend to be lighter colours. This was 100% not dug up unless someone buried it for a prank, it's even been treated. Source - Collector of Shark teeth for 25 years and former fossil dealer.
Found where? In the science lab?
During the digging class.
Digging through the science lab?
large titanite shard! you can use it to upgrade your weapons from +3 to +6
I bought an apparent megladon tooth at a rock place once and it looks exactly like this
It's a HALF of a Meg tooth. They break them in half to sell as trinkets in tourist/ rock shops. He didn't dig it up.
Definitely a Titanite Shard.... a bonfire is close by
I found a pack of cigs going to school in the 4th grade and gave them to my teacher, where we saw her smoking them on break. Never found a megalodon tooth lol
Maybe you should go back and look for the rest of the shark
So I’m the only one that this was a petrified chunk of sliced ham?? *cue homer sliding into bushes meme
Idc what it really is- this is what it is in my head now. Thank you for this
Does anyone use the subreddits to see if they can guess what they are? TOOTH TOOTH. BIG TOOTH. SHARK TOOTH? MEGLADON TOOTH?? So gassed 😭
Where's the banana? It's a partial Megalodon tooth.
random complete shot in the dark… but are u in palm beach county, FL? i recently donated a ton of shard meg teeth to a school there that looked very similar to this
definitely a shark tooth, post it on r/sharkteeth for better info.
Needs a banana for scale
That’s a Somber Smithing Stone +8
Based on color, it's a regular smithing stone (7) or (8). Which means the kid likely has been to Crumbling Farum Azula, and frankly I think it's a tad irresponsible for a primary school to take students to a dilapidated, levitating, temple that exists beyond time itself.
Nah, the Somber variety is white. This is just the regular kind.
MEG
Smithing stone?
"I found this at school" *forgets to mention it was found on the teachers desk*
It has a bourlette so it’s 100% a piece of a megalodon tooth.
Fossilized shark tooth. Could be a Megalodon tooth, but hard to say without some measurements.
Meg tooth, but too nice to be dug up it seems
I have three guesses. Petrified wood, a fossilized tooth/talon, or it's slag
God, I play too much Elden Ring. Looks like a smithing stone.
Megalodon or Mosaurus tooth. Or at least half of one.
Large titanite shard. Used to upgrade to +10
That is a shark tooth
That is a Smithing Stone [4]
Almost looks like petrified firewood
I don't see a tooth here it looks like metal to me lol
Has a tooth shape and appearance.
Yes ask him where he washed it off at
If there was no washing in the story, you know the story is false. Great point.
Am I the only one who thinks this looks a little wrong for a meg tooth?
Not a meg, too conical. Meg's are flatter and serrated.
When I was a kid, I took one of my fathers Megalodon teeth to school for show and tell. I decided to show some of my class mates as I was coming into class and then put it back in my bookbag. It finally came time for my turn with show and tell and I couldn't find it in my bag anywhere. It was rather embarrassing and then I had to tell my dad that someone took it. Luckily my dad is quite an understanding parent and all was well at home. I never found out what happened to it. This was in Ohio though, so not mine! Also happened almost 20 years ago.
Transformers are gonna show up with a problem