Texas couple discovers prehistoric shark tooth

VENICE, Fla. – A Texas couple made an unusual find during their trip to Florida: Two matching halves of a prehistoric shark's tooth.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports Wes and Kerry Kirpach dive off the coast of Venice each year.

The area is a popular spot to search for megalodon shark teeth. The shark was about the size of a modern whale shark and went extinct 4 to 20 million years ago.

In July, Wes Kirpach found half of a 3.75-inch megalodon shark's tooth. Kerry Kirpach found a similarly sized tooth an hour later.

Later the Dallas-area teachers realized the cracks along the broken half of each tooth perfectly aligned.

One man who has been searching for the fossils for 30 years says he's never heard of anyone recovering matching megalodon tooth halves.