Ancient Ocean Creature Megalodon: Scientists: It Was Probably Slim
The prehistoric creature “Megalodon” is considered one of the world’s most fearsome predators.
one of the world’s most fearsome predators, and was the prototype for the fearsome and almost invincible shark in the movie The Meg.
AFP reports that the megalodon in the movie was a big, burly shark. Still, scientist believe that after re-analyzing the fossil evidence, they believe that the megalodon was much slimmer than previously thought, and that the shark went extinct about 3.6 million years ago.
Previous scientific studies have suggested that the Megalodon may have been up to 20 meters long. Still, estimates of scientists of its actual size vary widely because they are based on the shark’s only remaining fossils, which are teeth and vertebrae.
Scientists have hypothesized that the Megalodon and its current descendant, the Great White Shark, would have shared a similarly stocky build, but according to a paper published in Palaeontologia Electronica, an international team of researchers suggests that the slimmer mako shark, the shark with the more slender body, may have been closer to the actual size of the Megalodon than the shark. maybe closer to the actual size of the Megalodon shark.
Our team re-examined the fossil record and found that the mako shark was slimmer than thought,” said University of California, Riverside biologist Philip Sterns. The megalodon remains a fearsome predator at the top of the ancient marine food chain, and based on a renewed understanding of its body, it may have behaved differently.”
The good news for the unfortunate victims of the next megalodon movie is that megalodon sharks, as opposed to great whites, “probably aren’t very good swimmers,” says study co-author Kenzo Shimada, a paleontologist at Chicago’s Tiburon University.
Megalodon sharks may have had to hunt less due to their longer digestive tracts, which may also be what made them go extinct as enigmatic as they did.
Previously, it was theorized that the sharks died because there was less prey around. But new insights into their actual size have revealed that the culprit may have been something else.
Sterns said, “I believe there are many factors that led to the extinction, and one of them may have been the emergence of the great white shark, which may have been more agile, making them better predators than the megalodon.”
Shimada said more complete skeletons need to be found to understand the true size of the megalodon, “We still don’t know what a megalodon looks like, which allows us to continue to use our imagination.”
