This replica Megalodon tooth progression shows 2 sets of 4 rows of 6 inch teeth. The teeth are cast from real teeth. The jaw section is our reconstruction of a jaw section because jaws are rarely preserved because they are cartilage that seldom fossilized. Megalodon had 46 front row teeth, 24 in the upper jaw and 22 in the lower jaw. Most sharks had at least six rows of teeth, so a Megalodon would have had about 276 teeth in its mouth at any given time. The teeth in the back rows were replacement teeth, sliding in to replace the front teeth when they become worn or damaged. Megalodon like all sharks replaced its teeth as it grew or the teeth become worn/damaged. New teeth are continually grown in a groove in the shark's mouth and the skin acts as a "conveyor belt" to move the teeth forward into new positions. Younger sharks replace their teeth more often than older ones. Unfortunately, we have relatively little real data on the tooth replacement rates of modern day sharks, let alone a prehistoric one. But we can safely assume an adult Megalodon would have shed thousands of teeth in its lifetime. Megalodon meaning "big tooth" is an extinct species of shark that lived approximately 23 to 2.6 million years ago, during the Miocene to end of Pliocene Epochs.
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