Megalodon Teeth

This tooth was listed on a site called www.darkwatermegs.com The guy who runs the business is a diver who searches black water rivers for meg teeth. He’s also the most reasonably priced guy in the business that I’ve found.

So I snagged that picture. And when you read Black Water Requiem you can know exactly how the tooth they find looks, because this is it, exactly.

When I found the picture I made a promise to myself that if I finished the book, and this tooth was still for sale, I’d buy it. A little reward for a job well done.

Guess what? 

Mission a-chomp-lished.

Here it is:

I Fuckin’ Love Sharks.

To be clear, I’m terrified of them, to the point that it’s rare for me to get into any body of water where they might be, but damn they’re cool. For me they exist in this weird confluence of interests that combines in to a mélange of Bob catnip.

First, we have the ‘cryptid’ angle. There are all sorts of cryptid discussions in the shark space, most of them centering around whether or not Megaldons (prehistoric sharks that are like a Great White on mega-steroids) still exist. While I don’t believe that they are still kicking around, I’ve loved reading all about the various theories, books like The Meg, and reported sightings.

Then there is the whole ‘thing in a place you don’t expect it’ angle. This is something I generally love, and Bull Sharks fit the bill perfectly. Sharks that do just fine in fresh water? Hell yeah. Terrifying, but so much fun to read about and watch on YouTube.

Lastly there is the ‘happy memory’ connection. One of my favorite memories from childhood is going with my dad to this road cut on the way to Montgomery to find fossilized shark teeth. It’s something I love so much that I wrote it into my book series. To this day I have a large jar of teeth we found, and every few years I try to go back there and add a few more.

A few years ago a good friend of mine gave me a really good reproduction meg tooth. I’ve kept it in my office for years as inspiration, and have always wanted to have a real one to go with it.

All this is why I love movies like Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, The Meg, etc. For my money it’s hard to top a good shark movie. The more unusually sized, the better in my book.

So when I sat down to write Black Water Requiem, which is my love letter to all the things I love about sharks and shark horror, I knew I wanted to work in a megalodon tooth. When I reached the scene in the book where this particular tooth is found I decided I wanted to find a picture of one to act as my ‘official’ tooth. For things of high importance, if I can, I try to find a picture to put in my notes so I can keep it consistent.

This is the picture I found: