Little megs need homes too.

In preparation for the soon to arrive dive season I have been doing a little screening to sharpen my ability to find teeth in the rivers. I'm working on the theory that if I can find a 1/4 inch tooth in a screen I should be able to see a 2 inch tooth in a gravel bed. Last week it was sifting for great whites in GMR in Greenville, N. Carolina. I got there the day after DW and crew cleaned out the creek so I only managed to bag 11 great whites. This week it was a tiny gully in Virginia. Runoff from nearby construction has been dumping sand in the gully and for the past couple of years the gravel beds have been covered in a thick layer of sand too deep to easily dig through. Luckily the sand is beginning to be washed away and there are a couple of patches of gravel visible again. The gully produces material from the Miocene Calvert formation and occasionally older teeth show up as well. The chance of finding a large meg here is almost nil, the largest I have found in this spot was a not quite 4 inch clunker. The megs may not be big, and many of the teeth are re-worked, but the number of species that can be found is amazing. I don't have a favorite type of tooth from this location, but occasionally a beautiful early meg pops up that is just as nice as any I have ever found along Scientists Cliffs in Maryland. As you can see I didn't find a monster, but I got a couple of interesting species and a sweet 1 3/4 inch chubutensis. I really love the big megs, but nice little megs aren't bad either.