by Barbara Ann Weibel at Hole In The Donut
Any list of the world’s most unique beaches would have to include the five beaches of Venice, Florida (Venice Beach, Nokomis Beach, North Jetty Beach, Brohard Beach, and Caspersen Beach) because they are the best places on the planet to dig for petrified shark’s teeth. These ten million year old fossilized shark teeth range in size from one-eighth inch long to three inches long and represent at least ten different species, several of which are extinct.
The main boardwalk entrance to Venice Beach
For eons, sharks have died in the Gulf of Mexico. Their carcasses sink to the ocean floor and are covered by layers of sand and silt, where they decompose, leaving only their teeth and jaws. Sharks have seven rows of teeth; each row consists of 40 or more teeth. The front row is used to feed until they wear out, at which time they are shed and a new row of teeth moves up and into place. Since a single Tiger shark can produce as many as 24,000 teeth in ten years, that means literally billions of teeth have been deposited in the Gulf.
In addition to fossil hunting, Venice Beach offers crystal clear turquoise waters
Thousands of years ago, sea levels were much higher and most of south Florida was underwater. Unlike other areas of the state, in the Venice area the wave action was much calmer, which allowed the teeth to remain in place rather than being swept far out to sea. Since the waters have long ago receded and the coastline in this area is now being eroded, sharks teeth are exposed by every major storm, earning the town the right to bill themselves as the “Shark Tooth Capitol of the World.”
Sorting through sand dredged from the beach in search of shark's teeth
Take a walk on any of Venice’s beaches and you will no doubt see people digging in the sand with long-handled steel sieves, hoping with each basketful to discover a prize fossil. Of the five beaches in the area, Caspersen is held by most to be the very best location to hunt for shark teeth. Venice Beach is such a popular shark tooth hunting spot that the town uses a picture of a fossilized shark tooth to form the “V” in Venice and holds a Shark’s Tooth Festival each April. Venice is located on Florida’s Gulf coast, midway between Sarasota and Naples.
Photos courtesy of Barbara Ann Weibel
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41 Responses
Our family loves hunting for sharks teeth, it is a great time to spend together. We haven’t been to Florida beaches, but have had great success in the Northern Neck area of Virgnina (about 2 hours from Washington DC). The fossilized sharks teeth you find on those beaches are reported to be 12-15 million years old! Over the years we have collected a few hundred of them!
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Now, here’s a beach activity I’ve never tried before! And how interesting; I never knew that this part of Florida was such a hot spot for fossil hunters. Well, shark tooth fossil hunters, but still! That’s news to me. Thank you.
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[...] folks who head for the beach in Venice, Florida end up at the municipal beach access, right in the center of town. Since it is miles long with great facilities, few find it necessary [...]
Shark teeth are indeed a major attraction of Venice beach, but so are the pristine beaches and glorious sunsets. If there are any certified divers out there, please email me, I can point you in the right direction to dive for shark teeth by the hundreds right off Venice beach. lisamichael416@yahoo.com.
We are just south of Casperson Beach today — walking about .75 of a mile — and found about 30 shark’s teeth. We just stood in the shallow area where the waves barely washed onto shore, let the water recede and found many teeth. A fabulous day!
Spent a day at Caspersen and found that looking for sharks teeth can be very addictive. It was a great family outing – my 22 year old, as well as my 15 and 14 year old loved the challenge. We found 56 teeth within a matter of 40 minutes! One of the highlights of our trip to Florida.
Do you need a permit to look for shark teeth on Caspersen Beach or are you free to roam and collect what you want?
You only need a permit if you find and want to keep mammal fossils. You can find a few here and there but shark teeth are the most prevalent. I also find tons of stingray fossils mixed in. Try Casperson and also Manasota beach, pretty good stuff there too.
do u need a permit to look 4 sharks teeth?
Going on are third trip to Venice, my kids love looking for shark teeth, ever time i ask where they want to go on vacation ? they reply, look for more teeth .have over 500 hundred now. going to find the big ones,or just add to our collection. PS the beaches are nice along with the sunsets!!!
WOW! I’ve received a LOT of feedback from this site from my earlier post, so I thought I’d post again with some more detailed information, especially for fellow divers. Yes, you can find teeth in the shoreline, but most of these are small and usually broken up due to rolling around in the surf. You can only find the bigger ones by diving right off shore of Venice Island. There are three major places to dive, Venice beach, Service Club and South Brohard beaches, all on Venice Island.
But each beach is a little different. Venice and Service Club are primarily teeth, while Brohard is primarily mammal bones, including horse teeth, pieces of turtle shell and the occasional fossilized bone. A few weeks ago a diver found a 7″ meg tooth about a hundred yards off Venice beach!
I’ve also had a lot of people ask me about dive gear and charter dive boats in the area. The most convenient dive boat charter is megalodoncharters.com and gear rental/sales is floridawestscuba.com.
I don’t work for either of them, so this isn’t favoritism advertising, they are just the most convenient to Venice Island. But they are excellent outfits, I’ve never heard a complaint. These two stores are just off island and operate next door to one another.
But for those who don’t mind diving right off the beach, be aware that you need to be a good swimmer. You’ll need to swim (in order to save your air) at least a hundred yards off shore before you go down.
Dive safe, have fun and write if you have any questions! LisaMichael416@yahoo.com
Michael, thanks for the interesting info on the different beaches. I wasn’t aware of Service Club or South Brohard. Just knew of Casperson and Venice beaches. My hubby and I use to live in Venice in ’84 -’86, and even got married there in ’85.
We loved to hunt sharks teeth! Always enjoyed a stroll through downtown Venice, quite beautiful, still is. We occasionally go back, but not often enough and it’s about an hour plus drive from where we moved to. I have to say in recent years, the pickings were very slim, compared to when we lived there. It seemed where ever you sat on the beach you could pick up a handful of teeth back then. I wish I knew how to scuba dive as I’ve read and heard often that there are a lot big fossils out there!
You’ve wet my appetite to go visit Venice again!
Just returned from Venice Beach back to the mountains of North Carolina..Had a great time hunting sharks teeth. My son and I hunted for a couple of hours and came out with 65 teeth that we found on the beach and one stuck inside his swimming trunks…haha….This was the highlight of our trip to Venice! We had dinner at Sharkys on the beach and it was amazing with incredible service and live entertainment. Great vacation, can’t wait for another trip! Also if you have children, The Mote aquarium is a must!!!
OMG, Wish We had spent more time in Venice, what a great place to visit with your kiddos. Shark tooth hunting at the beaches is a great entertainment for the whole family and if you are a diver , take a tour with “MEGALODON CHARTERS” great experience and lots of souvenirs to back up your story when you get back home.
Back in the late 90′s at Manasota Beach, just south of Venice, I sat down on a pile of shells…About 2 hours later I had found over 1,500 small sharks teeth, without moving 10 feet in either direction. It was just after a major storm. It was incredible.
shark tooth fest is a good chance to make money like a food vendor?
I had a father-in-law who lived in Venice. I would go down there in the winter for a few weeks and spent most of my time at the beach hunting for sharks teeth and other things. You will find sting rqy barbs, whale bone, puffer fish lower jaw, crab claws (petrified) and I sound a pre historic horses molar which, at first, I thought was a sharks tooth. (I took it to a souvineer shop in Venice and they told me what it was).
If you go to the beach by the Venice airport stay to the south of the fishing pier, at least that’s where I found all of my teeth (over 500 in different shapes and sizes). Good Hunting
My family moved to Punta Gorda 2 years ago. Casperson beach is the best we have been to yet! My 3 kids love looking for sharks teeth. We found 51 today in just 2 hours. Saw a few turtles and an armadillo in the bushes too. Very clean and rarely crowded. We will keep driving here to get our beach fix.
Michael,
I know Caspersen and Venice beach but where are South Brohard and Service Club ?
thanks,
Dave
Me and my 2 girls spent a few hours on Venice beach and found over 50 teeth.It as a really fun time.
My mom and I went to this beach and we collected in total, 77 shark teeth! I had tons of fun and hope to go back soon.
my wife and i have fallen in love with venice. We plan to retire there, as soon as we can talk our kids into moving.we live in Clermont, Florida, about 143 miles from our doorstep to Inn at the Beach, on Venice Ave.Tim is great guy there, and is always willing to help you find everything you are looking for. We have been visiting every Monday for the past month or so, and tried Casper eon beach yesterday, but we still like Sharky’s beach the best ! We also bring our bikes with us, as all you locals know it is very bike friendly there.
I found 21 shark teeth today!
Bah, Humbug! We only found one and it was in the sand bank. Should have lokked at this site BEFORE we went.
Went for the first time and we got about 30 teeth, mostly small. Just scooping bucket and dumping on beach then sorting through it. Largest about an inch.
Where is the best spot to find teeth at Venice Beach without snorkeling or diving? We were about 30 yards north of the rock jetty… north of the inlet. What was cool, was the drop off at the water line, was a natural spot for shells, etc. to get caught and it was easy to catch lots of material in a bucket to sift through.
Would love to snorkel out a bit and look for bigger teeth. Next time.
I have been searching the Venice surf for over 14 years now and have about 40 pounds of shark teeth that I have found there. You see, I came up with a nifty invention called the Shore Break Sand Sifter that takes all the guesswork out of finding teeth. You don’t have to wait for the teeth to come to you or use one of those silly stick and basket thingys.
Simply scoop, screen and pick out the gems from the surf line. I get literally hundreds of teeth in a one or two hour search. It is so much more fun when you actually FIND them in quantity and you get the bigger ones too. Search Surf Sifter Sieve on ebay to get yours. Have fun.
Really awesome.I’m loving it.Thanks for sharing.
Going to Venice Beach area for the first time. What should I expect in terms of best parking and etc?
7 1/2 hours at Casperson last week, we found 632 teeth with our sifter…yes thats not a mis-print 632 teeth between me and my two boys.
Headed there next week from Ohio! Can’t wait for our shark-teeth search! That plane will be weighed down
Im from KC MO, and went to Venice beach years ago with a couple friends. One of these friends claimed(quite accurately) that we were in the shark tooth capital. We spent our time searching and found perhaps 100 teeth. He was obsessed with finding a megladon tooth. We never did, but a child near us was digging in the sand and found one about 60 percent intact and about 3 inches long. I have a chance to go back in June and can’t wait…gonna spend every waking moment digging and searching.
we are going in july, where can you get the seives?
Headed to Venice tommrow, my daughter is 20 and is a chark freak. What are the best spots? What other sharky things are there to do?
Just got back from Casperson Beach! Anywhere on the beach is great for teeth. I suggest getting there in the AM a little ahead of the crowds. Nice showers there and all updated bathrooms! I dont suggest going to Sharkeys– food was fair at best and it was a 90 min wait to eat at 8pm (sunset time). Dont forget a container for your teeth… we brought empty water (16oz) bottles! Have fun happy sifting!
So, my family just got back to from the beach and were wondering how that shell holder is different than another? Does it have an advantages to it?
oh, just read it… never mind ;-D
I love Venice beach. Not only for the hundreds of shark teeth you can come away, but it’s a beautiful clean place as well.
Just got back from a week long trip to Venice. Spent the first day at Caspersen and only found a small handful of teeth. Decided to spend the rest of the time at Venice and started finding them by the dozens. We ended up with 300 by the end of the week, with the biggest being about 1 1/2 inches. Be sure to take some beach shoes if you plan on spending a lot of time combing the beach. Your feet will thank you.
just got back from a 5 day trip to manasota key and in that time i found over 1000 teeth with about 3 or 4 partial meg teeth…this is by far the best place for shark teeth i have ever been.
Ok this sounds strange but My husband wanted to know what I wanted for my 50th birthday and I really want to go and spend a long weekend looking for sharks teeth. Now of course the kids want to come. I love to stay in nicer hotels. Can you advise me where to stay in Venice. We have such great beaches here in Sc and we usually get houses.( i do not want to cook and clean on this trip) I would love to stay at a great resort and just walk on the beach daily! We would love to go in late October. We also would love to snorkel for teeth but( none of us scuba dive but have snorkeled in the Keys before. FYI- jut got back from Cabo yesterday and there are not sharks teeth there! thanks!
Monica
I just spent a few days at my rental home in South Venice and found dozens of shark teeth on the local beaches without trying too hard. My monthly rental house is at this address; http://vacationrentalpros.com/vacation-rentals/florida/venice It’s called sunset beach house- 3/2 with pool.