How many people can say their Covid-19 hobby turned into an ancient shark tooth discovery?

This 10-year-old can.

Miette Lansell was fossil hunting with her dad in Beaumaris when she found a massive megalodon tooth – belonging to the largest species of shark that ever lived.

“I was looking for fossils and a megalodon shark is really big,” said Miette.

“It’s like the size of a bus.”

The ginormous, prehistoric sharks measured 10 to 20 metres long and lived between 4 to 15 million years ago.

Miette and her dad, Christopher Lansell, began looking for fossils during Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdowns.

“I was trying to think of things for my daughter to do and so we started fossil hunting down on the Mornington Peninsula,” Mr Lansell said.

The pair, with nothing but a popsicle tooth for a shovel and an Easter basket to hold their finds, discovered their “best thing by far”.

“I saw a teeny tiny bit of grey and I dug for it. Then I found (it).

“I’ve been fossil hunting for quite a while now. I started when I was about 4ish, 5ish (years old).

“It’s really cool, I love this tooth … it’s very very rare.”

The pair made the discovery in 2024, at the Beaumaris Bay fossil site in Port Phillip Bay.

Melbourne Museum senior curator of vertebrate palaeontology Erich Fitzgerald said the tooth was “unusually complete and well preserved compared to every other megalodon tooth found at Beaumaris”.

“Megalodon teeth fossils like this one are quite commonly found in the southeastern states of the US, like North and South Carolina. But they are comparatively rare in Australia,” Dr Fitzgerald said.

“The megalodon was enormous compared to all other sharks … It would have been a monstrous animal capable of feeding on almost anything smaller than it, and really big adults could have preyed on whales.”

Miette’s proud father, who is the scientific artist behind St Kilda’s scale replica of the Solar System, said the young palaeontologist has a “sixth sense”.

“Is quite bizarre actually, we’ll go out (fossil) hunting and no kids will find any fossils … then there’s Miette who’s got about 15.

“She’s got the knack.”

Dr Fitzgerald said the discovery “could be scientifically quite significant” and encouraged the pair to contact the Melbourne Museum.

For now, Miette is happy knowing she’s got one of the best show and tell stories ever.

“This is the best thing by far. Definitely.”