Where To Find Shark Teeth on Saint Simons Island

Like I said in my last post, prior to our beach trip to Jekyll Island, Sawyer had been talking for months and months about finding shark teeth when we went to the beach. When we moved into our house, he had found a bag where I put the fossils we found when we went fossil hunting in the Peace River in Florida. He loved seeing the shark teeth and loved hearing how we found them, so I told him that maybe we could look for some next time we went to the beach. I’ll admit, I had some friends who go to the beach each year and always find them, so I thought it’d be a little easier, but after three days of no luck, I enlisted help. We asked my husbands cousins, the ones who had found the Megalodon tooth if there were any good beaches to find shark teeth other than the Shark Tooth Beach on Jekyll, and they took us to this tiny little beach on the island that they had heard people had found shark teeth on.

It wasn’t more than ten minutes before we found one. Brandon’s cousin found the first one, and once he told us what to look for, it only took a few minutes before we had more, and by the end of an hour, all of us had found one or two.
(and some also found three or four new crab friends….)

We didn’t bring any sifters, so our process was pretty simple (these are some awesome sifters if you are looking for some). Walk along the sand, not even near the edge of the water really (low-tide is preferable but we did it at high tide and still had success), and just look at the small black things that look somewhat like shell fragments or shark teeth! Once you find one, you’ll know it’s a shark tooth- triangular, shiny, molar ridges. We just kept picking black things up, brushing them off, and low and behold, eventually, we held shark teeth. Honestly, I didn’t even believe Cason when he showed me the first few, I was sure he had brought ones from home and was “planting” them, but once I found my own far away from where he had been, I believed it.

Here is our bounty, along with Sawyer’s three favorite new friends, whom he was so sad to leave at the beach that we had to have a mini-funeral before returning them to the sea. We ended up taking home 9 shark teeth, plus one white one I found after we took the picture. Brandon’s cousins found another four or five. Not bad for a less than an hour of shark tooth hunting! I felt so silly saying it but I love making that kids dreams come true!

For those who want to find their own shark teeth on St. Simons Island, I kind of hate to share our spot since it’s not well-known, but there’s enough shark teeth out there for all of us! So, to find our little honeyhole, when you drive over the bridge onto St. Simons Island, take the first right as soon as you get onto land. There will be a real small boat ramp with a long dock. Park and then just walk down to the sand to the left of the boat ramp and start looking! This is the kind of terrain you are going to want shoes for, much of it is covered in Oysters embedded into the sandy rock, but we found all of ours in the sandy part above that at medium tide (it was on it’s way out but not all the way out. I’m sure the Oyster-y part is even more full of shark teeth but we had success even on the sandy beach and the Oyster part will cut your feet, we’ve tried it. If you go, tag me in your shark tooth finds so I can see!

If you want to turn your teeth into necklaces, this is a cool kit from Amazon, just use the shark teeth you find instead of the ones it comes with!