Island artist creating jaw-dropping prehistoric sculptures
The jaw measures roughly 3 metres wide and 2.5 metres tall
Chris Ruprecht's Charlottetown home doesn't have your usual lawn ornament. Instead, it's a sculpture of a giant set of prehistoric shark jaws.
Ruprecht is an artist that specializes in sculpting paleolithic creatures. His latest project is creating a to-scale replica of megalodon jaws, an extinct species of shark that lived millions of years ago.
The sculpture is part of a series of megalodon jaws that Ruprecht will be making, which he said is commissioned by a collector in the United States who is starting their own museum based on the prehistoric creature.
The jaw measures roughly three metres wide and 2.5 metres tall. It's made up mostly of Styrofoam that Ruprecht grinds into shape.
Ruprecht said he uses a projector with images of an actual megalodon jaw for reference. He said he's also been basing the structure off of great white sharks, a relative of the megalodon.
"I've been on a huge learning curve as far as all the technical information," Ruprecht said.
90 kilograms of real teeth
It will eventually be outfitted with real, fossilized shark teeth. The artist said he needs to be precise not only in the size of the jaws, but in the spacing of the teeth on the sculpture.
"It's important to have the spacing and the correct amount of teeth. It would have had 46 teeth just in the bottom jaw and then it would have roughly 25 teeth in the top jaw."
Altogether, Ruprecht said there will be about 90 kilograms of teeth in the sculpture. It's still a few weeks from being finished, but once it is, the sculpture will be boxed up, loaded onto a truck and shipped to South Carolina.
"It's a large process to move it and lots of things to figure out, but it'll get down there," he said.
Until then, Ruprecht will be working on the sculpture at his Charlottetown property and said anyone is welcome to come by for a look.