Bethany Gaffey

In a quiet suburb in Gainesville, Florida you will find a lovely house on a cul-de-sac where a man and his wife are enjoying their retirement years. At first glance, you see a typical couple that likes relaxing on the weekends and indulging in their hobbies, such as playing the piano or watching TV. But step inside the house and you will discover a room so miraculous, you’ll think you just stepped into a natural history museum.

This is the shark teeth collection of Dr. Gordon Hubbell, a humble man that would never boast about his gallery, but has come to be known as an expert in shark paleontology. In this room, Dr. Hubbell has what very well may be the largest, best preserved collection of shark jaws and fossil shark teeth in the world.

First of all, Dr. Hubbell, thank you for taking the time to share your story. For starters, please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m Dr. Gordon Hubbell and I’m originally from northern Ohio. I’ve lived in Columbus (Ohio), Cincinnati (Ohio), Miami (Florida), and now I live in Gainesville (Florida). My wife and I graduated from Ohio State University and got married while we were both students. In fact, we had our first child while I was still in veterinary college, so things were pretty hectic.

Where did your career path take you?

I had a lot of part-time jobs while I was in college. One of them was as a zookeeper for Columbus Zoo and that was instrumental in getting me interested in working with zoo animals. After graduation, I went into a small animal practice in Cincinnati for two years, treating dogs and cats, but also doing part-time veterinary work at the Cincinnati Zoo. And then I found a job at the Miami Zoo and we moved down [to Miami, Florida] in 1961. I worked as a veterinarian, and also part of the time as a zoo director, for a little over 30 years.

So you’ve always had that interest in animals, but when did your interest in the ocean and sharks really come into play?

When we lived in Miami I used to go out fishing. And of course we fished for snappers and groupers – things that we could eat – but I also put out a bigger line for sharks. Once in a while I’d hook one and then I’d fight it for hours and bring it in. And they were such interesting animals that I brought them in, dissected them, saved parts for study, and we also ate some of them too.

How exactly did your collection begin from there?

After I’d been fishing for sharks in Miami for about ten years, a friend of mine from Hollywood, Florida came down to visit and said, “Hey, you’re so interested in sharks, you should go up into central Florida to the phosphate mines and collect fossil shark teeth.” And so he arranged for me to meet two guides up there. They took my son and I out and we collected fossil shark teeth, and then…I was bitten by the ‘shark tooth bug.’ For the next twelve years, I would spend one weekend a month up in the phosphate mines hunting fossil shark teeth. I’d average about 1,000 teeth a day. Of those, about 20-25 were bigger teeth in the two to three inch bracket.

Do you remember the first tooth you collected?

[Laughs] Don’t remember the first tooth. I sure remember the biggest tooth I found up there, which was a little over five inches high. I had gone up there on Friday and had gotten a cold or a virus, I guess. When I went out to the phosphate mines on Saturday I felt terrible. But I took about five steps from the car and found this big tooth, a little over five inches, and instantly got well and spent the whole weekend [chuckles] hunting for fossil shark teeth.

From then to now, how many teeth would you say are in your collection?

Oh…I would say there’s probably a couple million. I’ve collected them in Mississippi, California, the Carolinas, Peru, and of course all over Florida in different places.

Can you list some of the species that you have?

Ooh, I’ve got just about every common species. You see, in Florida most of [the phosphate is from] the Miocene deposit, which means that [the teeth] are any place from five to ten million years old. And almost all of the bigger species that were found in that time period are present today. So, I began to collect shark jaws to use for comparison to the fossil shark teeth. That’s why I have so many shark jaws of so many different species – I use them to compare to the fossil shark teeth for identification purposes.

You’ve told me about your biggest shark tooth, but what about your largest set of jaws?

Largest set of jaws…well, I’ve got the jaws from the largest white shark that’s ever been accurately measured. It was 19 feet, 6 inches and was caught off a place called Ledge Point in Western Australia. This is going back about 20 years ago.

Of course it was Australia! [laughter] So, what is the best part about having this collection in your house?

Well it’s of interest to me, you know? I tell people that come in here that it’s a typical example of a hobby that turned into an obsession, and I admit it. I enjoy it and I especially have tried to get associated sets of teeth. These are sets of teeth that come from one shark that died so many millions of years ago. And currently I have 51 associated sets, and you would be lucky to find one or two in museums around the country. So, it’s the largest collection in this country…probably the world.

What are your plans for the future of the collection?

It’s going over to the Florida Museum of Natural History. I work with students from the Florida Museum now – I’ve got several graduate students that come over here. I’ve had a couple of doctoral students in the past. And it’s fun to work with them. They’re interested in sharks and heck, that’s half the battle right there.

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