Nearly nine feet tall, largest shark jaws set ever ...

Heritage Auctions (HA.com) - Fossil hunter Vito Bertucci spent lifetime seeking fragments of 90-foot long prehistoric predator Megalodon sharks to assemble the massive jaws; died while diving for teeth in Georgia DALLAS, TX — The largest set of prehistoric shark jaws ever assembled, measuring 11 feet across and almost nine feet tall, is estimated to sell for $700,000 or more in Heritage Auctions’ Signature® Natural History Auction on June 12. It took famed fossil hunter Vito "Megalodon" Bertucci almost 20 years to find fragments of the ferocious Megalodon shark in the rivers of South Carolina, and 16 years to assemble the massive jaw. Bertucci, of Port Royal, South Carolina, died in 2004 in Georgia while diving for prehistoric shark's teeth. "This was Vito's legacy,” said his brother, Joey Bertucci, who consigned the huge jaw set to the auction. “He loved it. He dragged it around everywhere. This was something he just had a vision to do, and it took him a lifetime of collecting to be able to build it." Megalodon was the largest predator that ever existed on Earth, measuring 60 feet in length or more. "The Megalodon was a shark that grew to the length of two city buses and preyed on whales and other sharks,” said David Herskowitz, Director of Natural History Auctions at Heritage. “With jaws that size, and a hugely voracious appetite, you or I would be no more than an hors d'oeuvre for this monster." The jaw set is composed of 182 fossil teeth, some over seven inches long, displayed in a composite mold. It is currently on display at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science and will remain there until it is moved nearby to the auction venue in Fair Park in early June.