Ancestor of the Great White gives Pacific island new bite

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2004

NOUMEA, Jan 21 (AFP) — It may have been extinct for about one million years, but the Megalodon, the larger ancestor of the Great White Shark, is now supporting a small firm on the French Pacific island of New Caledonia.

Former wholesale butcher and marine enthusiast Alain Conan decided in 1997 to buy a boat to dredge off the South Pacific island for fossilized teeth of the Megalodon, which measured up to 15 metres (50 feet) in length.

During three years of sweeping the seas off New Caledonia he recovered thousands of fossilized teeth. "Along with some friends, I decided to set up a small company to sell the teeth," Conan says.

The reason for his finding such large numbers is that Carcharodon Megalodon -- the largest shark ever to hunt the oceans --...