Donald Gibson found the skeletal remains, which included more than 50 vertebrae, a skull and a jaw full of teeth, near his Chesapeake Beach home while building a sunroom on Oct. 31, the museum, located in Solomons, Maryland, said in a news release.
Gibson contacted Dr. Stephen Godfrey, curator of paleontology at the museum, who confirmed that Gibson had found an ancient shark 8 to 10 feet long, the release said.
It's the first snaggletooth shark fossil ever discovered, the museum said.
The jaws and teeth were preserved mostly intact after the shark came to rest upside down on the ocean floor 15 million years ago.
“We were wonderstruck,” Godfrey said. REUTERS