SOLOMONS — 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, with many in Calvert Cliffs along the coast of Calvert County.
“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.
Megalodon’s journey to Annapolis started with a conversation. Godfrey was talking with John Nance, the marine museum’s paleo collections manager, when the topic shifted to the megalodon.
“Hey, why don’t we try to make it the state shark?” Godfrey recalled asking.
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.”
So he reached out to Marianne Harms, a former member of the marine museum’s board who had helped get it recognized as the state’s paleontology center. She connected him with Sen. Jack Bailey, R-Calvert and St. Mary’s.
“We just started working on it last summer when I took Stephen in to meet Sen. Bailey, and it is a difficult process to have something named as a state entity,” Harms said.
Bailey introduced the bill in the Senate, and Del. Todd Morgan, R-Calvert and St. Mary’s, introduced it in the House.
Godfrey testified in support of the bill twice, bringing along his daughter, Zoey, who is in third grade.
Calvert County officials and members of the public also wrote letters of support. Representatives of the Natural History Society of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation sent in written testimony favoring the bill.
Fourth-grade teacher Anna Shay also shared letters and pictures from her students.
“The megalodon shark is strong and brave so people will think we are also strong and brave,” one student wrote.
It faced some pushback from Andy Ellis, a Green Party candidate for governor, who wanted to designate megalodon as the state historic shark to leave room for a living one to have that designation.
At one point, the bill stalled in the General Assembly. But on the last day of the session, it was tacked on as an amendment to a bill recognizing a state natural sciences museum and Oct. 1 as a day to honor victims and survivors of domestic violence. It passed through both chambers and is on its way to the governor’s desk.
“I can’t believe this actually happened,” said Godfrey, adding that he thought the bill had died.
“To me, it’s like, just one of the super fun things that I’ve been a part of.”
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