{"id":426681,"date":"2026-10-13T15:42:43","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426681\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T15:42:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:42:43","slug":"sanibel-visitor-finds-fossil-shark-tooth-that-could-be-millions-of-years-old-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426681\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanibel visitor finds fossil shark tooth that could be millions of years old | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">SANIBEL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 A beachcombing trip to Sanibel Island turned into an unexpected discovery for one visitor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Ruth Obermaier found a fossilized shark&#8217;s tooth washed up on Blind Pass and believes it could be millions of years old. The find comes after hurricane activity in the Gulf, which may have stirred up fossils buried in the sand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Obermaier says she wasn&#8217;t even looking for a shark&#8217;s tooth when she found it. She was hoping to find a Junonia, a highly sought-after shell on Sanibel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Instead, she spotted the dark-colored tooth along the shell line at Blind Pass. She says it turned white overnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">Obermaier believes it could be a fossilized great white shark&#8217;s tooth, potentially millions of years old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">&#8220;This is my first time getting a shark tooth&#8230;still looking for that Junonia,&#8221; Obermaier said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-3 overflow-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-sm\">WINK News reached out to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to see if experts can help identify the find and determine how old it may be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANIBEL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 A beachcombing trip to Sanibel Island turned into an unexpected discovery for one visitor.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325,115],"class_list":["post-426681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}