Maryland has a new state symbol, and it has been extinct for roughly 3.6 million years. As of Oct. 1, the megalodon — the largest shark that ever lived — is officially the state's designated shark, making Maryland the first state in the country to name one.
The designation comes from Senate Bill 35, which the General Assembly passed in April and Gov. Wes Moore signed into law; under Maryland's standard schedule for new statutes, it took effect Oct. 1. The bill had two sponsors, Sen. Jack Bailey and Del. Todd Morgan, and according to Fox5 DC, it arrived at the State House partly on the strength of letters and drawings from schoolchildren who lobbied for it.
There are so many people, young and old, who have worked beside us to make this possible. It's been so much work people don't see. But to the hundreds of kids, literally, who have written letters and drawn pictures, this has been one of the enjoyable bills that legislators actually had some fun with.
— Del. Todd Morgan
The choice is rooted in geology, not whimsy. Megalodon teeth — some the size of a human hand — turn up regularly along Maryland's Chesapeake Bay shoreline, especially at Calvert Cliffs, and have been documented in seven counties. Around 20 million years ago, the region is believed to have served as a nursery ground where the sharks, which could grow past 50 feet, hunted whales and dolphins. The Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons holds one of the country's notable collections of the fossils.
Dr. Stephen Godfrey, the museum's curator of paleontology, backed the bill publicly, calling megalodon "such an iconic animal" and saying "it's time for megalodon to take center stage as the first shark designated as a state shark." He has argued the designation could do double duty: drawing attention not just to the extinct giant, but to the dozen-plus living shark species that still swim Maryland's coastal waters, several of which face their own conservation pressures.
Maryland already has an unusually crowded roster of official symbols, including a state dinosaur, state fossil shell and state boat. Megalodon joins them as a reminder that Maryland's claim to prehistoric fame predates the written record by millions of years. The Calvert Marine Museum says it expects renewed visitor interest this fall, and lawmakers who backed the bill say they hope the attention trickles down to classrooms, where the campaign began.