Collectors think of these teeth out of the Ocala Group (Late Eocene) limestones as Carcharocles auriculatus. There is some doubt to that assignment.
Richard Hulbert (Ed.) in his THE FOSSIL VERTEBRATES OF FLORIDA (2001) sums up the situation with megatooth sharks. He points to research that says that the Florida holotype specimen labeled as Carcharodon auriculatus is actually another species, Carcharodon subauriculatus.
Depending on which authors you find most credible, C. subauriculatus is synonymous with C. angustidens or C. sokolowi. Hulbert favors Carcharodon sokolowi, following Case and Cappetta (1990). I am changing my specimen labels, though I think all these Carcharodon species (except for C. carcharias ) belong in the genus Carcharocles, Family Otodontidae.
If you accept the Hulbert-Case-Cappetta species name for Florida megatooth sharks, Carcharodon sokolowi, I believe that it is acceptably pronounced SO-KO-LAW-VAYE, recognizing a taxonomist named Sokolow or Sokolov.
I found this recently and was wondering, now is this a lighting strike sand tube type thing or coral or something totally diffrent.It has what looks like a core that is darker in color that runs the length of the piece, any help would be much appreciated.
nice shark teeth. i am in venice, florida and found some shark teeth in gravel paving a parking lot today. If anyone has recommendations on a land or shallow river site for megs, let me know I am at the beach, but not planning to do any scuba unfortunately...
I think what you have is a agatized coral fragment. It does look like a fulgurite, but I think probably it is coral. Maybe a fragment of one of these type of formations: (see pics on http://www.paleodirect.com/cor-003.htm)