Shark Bitten Man Discovered Its Tooth After 25 Years in 2019

Shark attack stories may not always sound scary, they can be mind-boggling sometimes as well. In 2019, a Florida man discovered the species of the shark that bit him nearly 25 years before in 1994. At a young age, Jeff Weakly went to Flagler Beach in Florida to surf with his friends when suddenly a shark bit him. Although he went to the hospital to treat his bitten foot, he was unaware that the shark had chomped his foot, leaving its tooth fragment stuck there.

Surprisingly, 25 years later, Jeff went to treat his blistering ankle, where he learned about a shark tooth in his foot. Eager to know about the species of the shake, he handed over the tooth to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Jeff Weakly talks about his shark tooth discovery

While he was in college, Jeff Weakly, the editor of Florida Sportsman Magazine, visited Flagler Beach in Florida with his friends to surf. Suddenly, he felt something bite his foot. Seeing his foot bleeding, he went to the hospital to get it treated. Doctors were convinced that it was a shark bite and applied 20 stitches. Since it did not cause much damage to him, Jeff became reluctant to the bitten area.

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However, in 2018, the editor noticed a blister appearing on his foot while running. It also had a hard edge. Jeff pulled out the hard-feeling substance, which turned out to be a tooth fragment. Weakly recalled his shark bite incident that happened two decades back. Although he first wanted to create a pendant out of the tooth, he was also curious to know about the species of shark which had bitten him.

Jeff had read an article about the University of Florida, where in a rare case DNA from the tooth of a shark was examined to determine its species. 50-year-old Jeff stated, “I was very excited to determine the identity of the shark because I’d always been curious,”

He also described how he was hesitant to send the tooth for research, “I was also a little bit hesitant to send the tooth in because for a minute I thought they would come back and tell me I’d been bitten by a mackerel or a houndfish – something humiliating.”

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Surprisingly, Jeff’s guess of the tooth fragment belonging to a black-tip shark was right. The researchers found out that it was a Carcharhinus limbatus, a shark species eager to bite humans.