Nine-year-old girl discovers megalodon shark tooth on Maryland beach

The rare and the ancient are the things that amateur fossil hunters hope to unearth. One young girl created it using her voice.

Nine-year-old Molly Sampson informed her mother she was "searching for a Meg" when visiting Calvert Beach in Maryland on Christmas Day.

That's exactly what she discovered while wading into knee-deep water: a tooth from the now-extinct Otodus megalodon shark species.

The curator of a nearby marine museum described it as a "once-in-a-lifetime kind of find."

Megalodon, which is Greek for "great teeth," was a marine mammal that existed for at least 3.5 million years before going extinct.

The species was not only the largest shark in the world, but also one of the largest fish ever to exist, growing to a length of more than 66 feet (20 meters).

According to her mother Alicia Sampson, who posted the discovery on Facebook, the tooth Molly discovered was 5in long and the size of her hand.

Molly and Natalie Sampson wanted to "go sharks tooth hunting like experts," according to Mrs. Sampson, and they requested insulated chest waders for Christmas.

She said that she and her husband Bruce left for the Calvert Cliffs shoreline on Christmas morning almost as soon as they had completed their meals and opened their gifts.

Mrs. Sampson described her daughter's discovery, saying, "She told me she was swimming in knee deep water when she saw it and dove in to collect it." She claimed that while getting her arms completely wet was worthwhile.

Molly had discovered over 400 considerably smaller teeth on her own, and her husband had been looking for fossils in the area since he was a young boy, but neither had ever ever across a tooth this size.

She has always wanted to locate a "Meg," but for some reason, Mrs. Sampson told CBS, "she spoke it into being on Christmas morning."

The family brought the teeth to the Calvert Marine Museum, where the paleontology division identified the shark and posted a Facebook message of congratulations to the "future paleontologist."

Stephen Godfrey, the paleontology curator of the museum, warned that people shouldn't assume that teeth like this one are typical along Calvert Cliffs.

And the tooth was in the water; she didn't need to search deep within the rocks.