• Maryland has become the first state to designate a state shark, choosing the extinct megalodon.
• The effort was led by paleontologist Stephen Godfrey of the Calvert Marine Museum.
• Fossils of the prehistoric shark are commonly found throughout Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay region.

As paleontologist Stephen Godfrey walked into the Calvert Marine Museum one morning in April, staff members congratulated him. In a way, he brought an extinct species back to life.

Two days earlier, in the final hours of Maryland’s legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill that made megalodon — the largest shark that ever lived — the state shark.

Godfrey, the marine museum’s curator of paleontology, helped come up with the idea and testified at the State House in support of it. Now, Maryland is the first to have a state shark, he said.

“As long as people have been here in Maryland, they have been noticing and collecting megalodon teeth,” he said.

Fossils of the prehistoric shark can be found throughout the Chesapeake Bay region.

“It was a prime place for early paleontologists in American history to come to collect fossils, to document the succession of life,” said Godfrey, who grew up in Quebec, Canada. He has been interested in natural history since he was young and turned his childhood bedroom into a museum.

“Hey, why don’t we try to make it the state shark?” Godfrey recalled asking.

Students join in effort to honor the mighty megalodon

He checked whether any other state had beat them to the idea. He found that North Carolina designated the megalodon tooth as its state fossil — but not its state shark.

“It was like, ‘Wow, this is like a golden opportunity,’ ” he said. “I’m surprised that nobody has thought of this.”