I’d say I have the largest, most comprehensive collection of fossil shark material in the United States, maybe in the world. For example, associate sets of teeth, or teeth that come from one shark that died 10 million, 50 million, 70 million years ago are extremely rare. Because a sharks skeleton is composed of cartilage, but it’s a different kind of cartilage, that is composed of little granules of hard mineral, like material held together by a collage and a connective tissue. So when the shark dies, it’s connective tissue rots and it just disintegrates. I’m sure there are many fishermen who have caught sharks, cut the jaws out, hung them out in a barn and come back in a month and find a pile of what looks like sand under the lower, or what was left at the lower jaw, or the pile of teeth on it. And those granules of sand, are just granules from the cartilage in the shark jaw. So they have a different kind of structure and when they die it disintegrates. And when the teeth are no longer connected to the jaw, then of course, if it rains, they get washed away or washed around.
