Megalodon: Description, Types, Pictures, & Fun Facts
Table of Contents
Megalodon: All You Need To Know
The Megalodon (Otodus megalodon) is a carnivorous fish that belongs to the Animalia family, phylum Chordata, class Chondrichthyes, order Lamnifores, and family Otodontidae. Its genus is Otodus.
The megalodon is estimated to grow up to 50 feet long and weigh up to 100,000 pounds, with a lifespan still unknown.
These saltwater fish feed on maleen whales, toothed whales, sea turtles, and sharks. The Megalodon is preyed upon by the Leviathan. Physical characteristics include tough skin. The megalodon was the world’s biggest shark.
The megalodon was substantially bigger than any other shark species on record, with a length of more than 50 feet and a weight estimated to be in excess of 100,000 pounds.
3 Incredible Megalodon Facts!
1. Because of the shark’s enormous size, a video of a great white shark called “Deep Blue” garnered international headlines in January 2019. “Deep Blue” was thought to be one of the largest great white sharks ever seen, weighing in at 2.5 tonnes. Megalodons are estimated to be 20 to 50 times the size of today’s greatest great white sharks, as you’ll see here.
2. The strongest biting force ever recorded in a live shark species is 18,216 newtons. The biting power of the megalodon was estimated to be up to 182,201 newtons in a recent 3-D computer analysis! This is more than five times the estimated biting force of a Tyrannosaurus Rex!
3. While megalodons were formidable apex predators, the most recent fossils discovered date from about 2.6 million years ago. Below is a comprehensive collection of scientific hypotheses as to why the megalodon may have become extinct.
Megalodon Classification and Scientific Name
Otodus megalodon is the scientific name for the megalodon shark. Megalodon teeth, which may grow to be over 6 inches long, were frequently mistaken for dragons or other fabled animals throughout the Middle Ages. Carcharodon megalodon was megalodon’s initial scientific name.
Megalodon was classified as a member of the Carcharodon genus, which includes today’s great white shark, because of its tooth structure. Megalodon is now classified as a member of the Otodontidae family, according to scientific agreement.
Megalodon’s exact classification is still up for question, hence the genus of the species might change in the future depending on new study and fossil finds.
Megalodon Appearance
The megalodon was a huge shark species. Scientific dispute has raged about megalodon’s size since its teeth were first discovered, and a compilation of scientific findings may be seen below.
Megalodon, like other giant fish, is thought to have shown dimorphism, with females growing much larger than males. Because sharks have cartilage skeletons, most of what we know about megalodon now comes from petrified teeth discovered all over the world.
While most models and artistic depictions of the megalodon show the species looking very similar to a much larger great white shark, there is some debate about whether the species’ shape resembled that of other shark species, such as the whale shark, which, like the megalodon, can grow to be 50 feet long.
Megalodon Size
Megalodon’s size has been studied extensively, although most estimates put its greatest length at roughly 50 feet (15 to 16 meters). Various methods have been tried to determine the length and body mass of this giant shark, with scientists relying mostly on tooth samples that may reach more than 6″ in length.
The primary result of current scientific studies concerning how enormous Megalodon may have grown is presented below:
• Megalodon’s greatest length was estimated to be 20 metres in a 1996 article by Gottfried et al (67 feet). Furthermore, the authors set a cautious maximum body mass of 47,960 kg (105,733 lbs). A maximum body mass of 103,197 kg was also determined in the study (227,510 lbs). To put things in perspective, today’s great white sharks may reach a maximum weight of 5,000 pounds!
• Megalodon can grow to reach between 14.2 and 15.3 metres long, according to a 2019 study by Kenshu Shimada (50 feet).
• A team of academics from Swansea University and the University of Bristol employed 2D reconstruction to estimate megalodon’s size in September 2020. According to their findings, the megalodon’s greatest size was 16 metres (52 feet) long, with a head measuring 4.65 metres (15 feet) long.
• Male megalodons were much smaller than females, who grew to enormous proportions. At their greatest length, males were around 20% shorter than females at their greatest length and weighed about half as much on average.
Megalodon Tooth Size
Except for Antarctica, Megalodon teeth have been unearthed on every continent. The teeth are known for their size, with the biggest examples ever unearthed being over 7 inches long! Larger great white shark teeth varied in diameter from 1.5 to 2.5 inches in length.
Megalodon teeth had serrated edges that converged to a pointed end, making them the “ultimate cutting instruments.” Scientists have been able to recreate the look of Megalodon’s jaws and the position of its replacement teeth thanks to the finding of six virtually full sets of megalodon teeth.
Megalodon teeth may still be found in abundance in a number of locations today. For example, megalodon teeth are thought to be found in “thousands” on cliff sides in Western Australia. They’ve been sighted regularly in the United States, including off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Megalodon Distribution, Population, and Habitat
Megalodon, like today’s great white sharks, was present in non-polar seas all over the planet. Its range did extend with time. Megalodons were first discovered in the Early Miocene, some 23 million years ago, in more concentrated places along the Baja coast, in the Caribbean, in the Mediterranean Sea, and in Australia.
The species’ range had spread over North and South America by the Late Miocene, around 6 million years ago, and it was more regularly seen in places like South Africa. North and South America were not linked in the Early Miocene, allowing migration between the continent’s east and west coastlines.
Furthermore, the Mediterranean opened out to a large sea that included most of what is now the Middle East. The species had exceptional hunting possibilities in these shallow waters.
Megalodon Diet
Megalodons were “apex predators” that ate baleen whales, toothed whales, sea turtles, and even other sharks. The megalodon required a considerable amount of food due to its enormous size.
The shark would need to devour around 2500 pounds of food every day to satisfy its hunger. For comparison, that equates to a daily diet requiring the consumption of the mass of 6.5 bottlenose dolphins!
Megalodon was at the top of the food chain, according to fossil evidence, and bite marks ascribed to the shark have been found on huge whale species like the sperm whale, which can weigh up to 130,000 pounds.
Megalodon species may have hunted varied prey depending on their location, with dwarf whales and medium-sized baleen whales being common targets, according to fossil records.
Megalodon Predators and Prey
According to fossil records, the megalodon is the most powerful shark ever. Their gigantism was “off the scale,” according to research published in Historical Biology in October 2020, and contemporary sharks in their gamily-Lamniformes-reached little more than 23 feet in length.
Megalodon’s size, as assessed by weight, might have been 10 to 30 times that of its nearest relatives. Sharks may have avoided megalodon throughout its time on the planet, preferring cooler seas where megalodon didn’t hunt and fight for resources, according to evidence found in the fossil record.
Megalodon faced competition despite its enormous size and predatory nature. For example, Livyatan, a toothed whale that existed at the same time as megalodon, hunted in a similar manner to today’s killer whales.
The species, on the other hand, was much bigger, with dagger-like fangs that might grow to be more than a foot long. The list of the world’s biggest predators is dominated by aquatic predators.
Sperm whales nowadays may grow to be more than 75 feet long and weigh more than 90,000 pounds. Currently, sperm whales hunt squid, but their forefather, Livyatan, may have fought megalodons directly.
Mosasaurus was another predator that was comparable in size to megalodon. Megalodon and Mosasarus were recently pitted against one another in a hypothetical combat, and both sea monsters had advantages that made it a close fight!
Megalodon Extinction
Megalodon’s demise has been attributed to a variety of factors, including climatic change, a nearby supernova, and the extinction of its major prey. We’ll look at each theory for megalodon extinction one by one.
Changes in the Climate: Megalodon was only found in more temperate seas. Megalodon fossils, for example, have yet to be identified north of Denmark in the northern hemisphere. Glacier growth in the poles – and the resulting loss of shallow, temperate oceans – may have resulted in fewer habitats suitable for the megalodon, reducing its population.
Supernova: Megalodon was one of the victims of a supernova 150 light years from Earth that took off more than 1/3 of the world’s huge marine mammals 2.6 million years ago, according to research published in the journal Astrobiology in 2018.
According to the researchers, a wave of radioactive ‘muons’ would have hit the planet and persisted for a generation, increasing the risk of cancer in bigger animals. Megalodon was one of the biggest animals on the planet at the time, with estimations of its size exceeding 100,000 pounds and beyond.
Finally, according to a study published in PeerJ in 2019, the extinction of the megalodon may have been triggered by a much smaller shark: the great white! The study’s authors point to evidence that megalodon extinctions occurred approximately a million years before the supernova that wiped off many huge marine species.
Climate change and the lack of prey such as smaller whales, they claim, are already causing megalodon numbers to drop. Adding to the species’ troubles, the great white shark arose at this time and began vying for food with younger megalodons.
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