MEGALODON

MEGALODON

THE PREHISTORIC SHARK

Introduction

In this project I am going to talk about the “Megalodon”, a prehistoric shark that lived approximately from 28 to 1.5 million years ago, during the Cenozoic Era. The Megalodon was the apex predator of its time, which means that the Megalodon was at the top of the food chain and did not have predators of its own. It was likely the largest and most powerful macro-predatory fish that ever lived. Fossil remains of the megalodon indicate that it may have approached a maximum of around 20.3 meters in total length. That is bigger than a bus! Scientists suggest that megalodon looked like a stockier version of the great white shark.

Like all sharks, the megalodon skeleton was formed of cartilage rather than bone; this results in mostly poorly preserved fossil specimens, causing scientists to not exactly know what it looked like. The most common fossils of Megalodon are its teeth, which are very similar to the teeth of the great white shark, but the Megalodon had more robust teeth. Shockingly, the Megalodon's teeth can grow up to 7.1 inches long and are the largest among all the species of sharks. This shows that the Megalodon is gigantic.

In 2008, a team of scientists conducted an experiment to determine the bite force of Megalodon. The results shows that its bite force, at maximum estimated size, is over 10 times greater than the one of the great white shark and 5 times greater than the one the of T-rex..

Megalodon: The prehistoric shark

Carcharodon megalodon represents the largest, meat-eating fish to have ever lived. The information we have about its size is drawn from comparisons with living sharks and the relationship between tooth size and total body length. Based on this information we can estimate the overall dimensions of this huge animal.

Thousands of teeth have been found worldwide, however only few bones. Over the past century, paleontologists have made estimates ranging from 40 to 100 feet, but now they’ve deducted that a fully-grown adult would grow from 55 to 60 feet long and weighed about 100 tons. However, there is also evidence that few may have grown up to 100 feet on a rare occasion.

• A megalodon was probably around three times larger than a Great White Shark, which a length of 20+ feet is rare.

• A megalodon was, on average, probably slightly larger than a Whale Shark, which can reach lengths around 41 ft.

• A megalodon was probably about half the size of a Blue Whale, which can reach lengths of around 94 ft.

The Megalodon also has a famous nickname as “Big Tooth”, and it had definitely earned it. The teeth of this astounding shark could grow up to 9 – 10 foot long!

Megalodon’s as sharks, shed their tens of thousands times in a lifetime, so Megalodon teeth have been found all over the world, from ancient to modern times. It was only in the late 17th century that early scientists discovered that the giant teeth were actually shark teeth.

Megalodon had the most powerful bite force of any creature that has ever lived!

In 2008, The US and Australian paleontologists both used the latest technology to see how powerful the bite of this magnificent shark was. A modern Great White Shark has about 1.8 tons of bite force. This led them to finding out that the Megalodon had a bite between 10.8 and 18.2 tons! This would mean they could easily crush a prehistoric whale’s skull as easily as we would eat through a banana!

Even though prehistoric whales were much bigger than the Megalodon, they were their main food source. Megalodon also ate dolphins, fish, squids and even giant turtles! As hard as their protective shells were, they didn’t stand a chance against the incredible Megalodon bite force. Evidence suggests the obvious; this prehistoric shark ate whales and other cetacea for breakfast! It's fossils are almost always found in areas associated with fossil whale bone. Some of these fossil whale bones of the Miocene and Pliocene show bite marks from megalodon teeth.

How did the Megalodon become extinct?

We know Megalodon sharks died out millions of years ago. However, the exact reasons for its extinction though may never be fully understood. Megalodon extinction is probably due to a number of reasons.

One reason that would have contributed to Megalodons extinction is at the end of

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