A beachgoer has found rare fossilised shark teeth, thought to be millions of years old, on the east coast of the United States.

Denny Bland found one of the teeth at North Topsail Beach, in the state of North Carolina.

“I felt like I was a lottery winner … oh my God, I’m the first one to touch that since it fell out of his mouth back in the day,” Mr Bland told local station WITN.

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Cynthia Crane, director of the Aurora Fossil Museum in North Carolina, said the teeth belonged to a Megaladon.

“Megaladon was this large, humongous shark that roamed the ancient seaways during the Miocene-Pliocene time – mainly mid Miocene to Pliocene – which was about 15 million to 5 million years ago,” Ms Crane told WITN.

“It’s nice to see them. It’s nice to have people finding and discovering fossils because it helps with our past and our record of palaeontology of North Carolina.”

Surf City Online Gazette’s Holly Ridge, who posted the photos of the teeth online, said it was not odd to find such fossils on the beach.

“We usually have one to two found per year along our beaches here in [south-east] North Carolina,” Ms Ridge said on Facebook.

“The tooth was just under six inches long, which is a full-size shark’s tooth from this species.

“The largest ever found was over seven inches.”

The discovery has given the seaside community international exposure on major media platforms, and given the man who found one of the teeth something to smile about.

“I couldn’t get a million dollars and be any happier … even the small shark’s tooth just excites the heck out of you,” Mr Bland said.

More shark videos for the strong of heart

Warning: the video below contains some coarse language.