April 19 (UPI) -- A girl visiting a North Carolina beach with her family made an unusual and rare discovery -- a shark tooth that could be up to 3 million years old.

Middle-schooler Avery Fauth was at the beach Monday in North Topsail when she found a fossilized tooth from a megalodon, a massive shark that went extinct millions of years ago.


"I'm looking around and I see something buried in the sand. I uncovered it and it keeps coming, and it's this big tooth, and then I hold it up and I'm screaming for my mom," Fauth told WECT-TV.

The girl and her family were engaged in a friendly competition to find shark teeth. Her sisters found several teeth, including great white shark teeth, but none approaching the megalodon tooth's size.

"I was pretty surprised [that she found one]. I've been looking for 25 years and I haven't found anything," Fauth's father said. "I was really shocked and excited for her that she found something that big."