The megalodon, which went extinct millions of years ago, was the largest shark ever to prowl the oceans and one of the largest fish on record. The scientific name, Carcharocles megalodon, means “giant tooth,” and for good reason: Its massive teeth are almost three times larger than the teeth of a modern great white shark. The megalodon’s fossilized bones and teeth give scientists major clues about what the creature was like and when it died off.
Fossil remains of megalodon have been found in shallow tropical and temperate seas along the coastlines and continental shelf regions of all continents except Antarctica. During the early and middle parts of the Miocene Epoch (which lasted from 23 million to 5.3 million years ago), large seaways separated North America from South America and Europe and Asia from Africa and the Middle East, which likely facilitated movement from one ocean basin to another. Throughout the Miocene, megalodon distribution expanded from pockets located in the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas, in the Bay of Bengal, and along the coasts of California and southern Australia to encompass waters off the coasts of northern Europe, South America, southern Africa, New Zealand, and East Asia. During the Pliocene Epoch, however, megalodon’s geographic range contracted significantly, and it was extinct by the end of the epoch.
What did megalodon eat?
The megalodon was a top-of-the-food-chain predator. It fed on other big marine mammals, like whales and dolphins. It may have even eaten other sharks, according to Discovery.
Researchers think the megalodon would first attack the flipper and tails of the mammals to prevent them from swimming away, then go in for the kill, according to the BBC. The megalodon’s 276 serrated teeth were the perfect tool for ripping flesh.
These sharks also had a ferocious bite. While humans have been measured to have a bite force of around 1,317 newtons, researchers have estimated that the megalodon had a bite force between 108,514 and 182,201 newtons, according to the NHM.
“Megalodon co-evolved with whales as a principal food source,” Becker said. “As mammals, whales had the ability to thermoregulate and migrate toward colder waters of the poles. While the exact thermoregulatory capabilities are a topic of the current study, the inability to hunt whales in colder water is believed to be one of the leading causes of megalodon extinction.”
What did megalodon look like?
Most reconstructions show megalodon looking like an enormous great white shark. This is now believed to be incorrect.
O. megalodon likely had a much shorter nose, or rostrum, when compared with the great white, with a flatter, almost squashed jaw. Like the blue shark, it also had extra-long pectoral fins to support its weight and size.
The oldest definitive ancestor of megalodon is a 55-million-year-old shark known as Otodus obliquus, which grew to around 10 metres in length. But the evolutionary history of this shark is thought to stretch back to Cretalamna appendiculate, dating to 105 million years old – making the lineage of megalodon over 100 million years old.
The Meg depicts a Megalodon biting a glass window of a giant submarine – leaving a huge tooth impression. Megalodon may have had the most powerful bite in the animal kingdom, but that cinematic move would simply have shattered every tooth in its mouth, leaving with windows completely unaffected.
How do we know it is extinct?
Megalodon went extinct about 2.6 million years ago when the earth underwent a period of cooling, causing a drop in ocean temperatures and a corresponding disappearance of many of the large whale populations which Megalodon would have relied on for food.
Part of the reason that people think Megalodon is more recent, is because fossils found in the 1950s were dated using incorrect scientific techniques to an age of only 11 000 to 24 000 years. Not only did this study use an outdated technique, but it also did not account for the fact that the fossils had been reworked, meaning that although they were old, they were buried in younger sediment.
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