The Megalodon went extinct around three million years ago, and nowadays almost all we have to show for it is, ominously, a pile of gigantic teeth. That’s because it, like modern sharks, would have had a skeleton mostly made of cartilage, which doesn’t fossilize well.

That lack of records means it’s hard to measure just how massive the Megalodon was. Past studies have extrapolated its size based on the proportions of its teeth, using the great white shark as a guide. From this, it was estimated to be between 15 and 18 m (49 and 59 ft) long.

The problem is, the great white shark isn’t the closest living relative of the Megalodon. So for the new study, scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Swansea compared it to five living relatives – the great white, the shortfin and longfin mako sharks, the porbeagle and the salmon shark.

The team found that the babies of all these species didn’t change proportions as they grew. That suggested that the Megalodon didn’t either, which makes it easier to extrapolate its size.

“This means we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern forms and project the overall shape as they get larger and larger – right up to a body length of 16 m (52.5 ft),” says Jack Cooper, lead author of the study.

Using this technique, the team estimated that a Megalodon that reached a length of 16 m would have had a head that measured about 4.65 m (15.26 ft) long, a dorsal fin that stood 1.62 m (5.31 ft) tall, and a tail some 3.85 m (12.63 ft) high.

https://newatlas.com/science/megalodon-size-measure-analysis/

Makes you wonder what these sharks ate as nothing would be safe, even the largest whales with these guys around. Perhaps they evolved to keep whale numbers in check and when they ate too many, went extinct.

Thanks, pf

PermeateFree said:

The Megalodon went extinct around three million years ago, and nowadays almost all we have to show for it is, ominously, a pile of gigantic teeth. That’s because it, like modern sharks, would have had a skeleton mostly made of cartilage, which doesn’t fossilize well.

That lack of records means it’s hard to measure just how massive the Megalodon was. Past studies have extrapolated its size based on the proportions of its teeth, using the great white shark as a guide. From this, it was estimated to be between 15 and 18 m (49 and 59 ft) long.

The problem is, the great white shark isn’t the closest living relative of the Megalodon. So for the new study, scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Swansea compared it to five living relatives – the great white, the shortfin and longfin mako sharks, the porbeagle and the salmon shark.

The team found that the babies of all these species didn’t change proportions as they grew. That suggested that the Megalodon didn’t either, which makes it easier to extrapolate its size.

“This means we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern forms and project the overall shape as they get larger and larger – right up to a body length of 16 m (52.5 ft),” says Jack Cooper, lead author of the study.

Using this technique, the team estimated that a Megalodon that reached a length of 16 m would have had a head that measured about 4.65 m (15.26 ft) long, a dorsal fin that stood 1.62 m (5.31 ft) tall, and a tail some 3.85 m (12.63 ft) high.

https://newatlas.com/science/megalodon-size-measure-analysis/

Makes you wonder what these sharks ate as nothing would be safe, even the largest whales with these guys around. Perhaps they evolved to keep whale numbers in check and when they ate too many, went extinct.

> it was estimated to be between 15 and 18 m … 16 m.

So that’s confirmed.

> the great white shark isn’t the closest living relative of the Megalodon.

News to me. Wikipedia confirms it. “It was formerly thought to be a member of the family Lamnidae and a close relative of the great white shark. However, it is now classified into the extinct family Otodontidae, which diverged from the great white shark during the Early Cretaceous. Its genus placement is still debated, authors placing it in either Carcharocles, Megaselachus, Otodus, or Procarcharodon. This is because transitional fossils have been found showing that Megalodon is the final chronospecies of a lineage of giant sharks originally of the genus Otodus which evolved during the Paleocene.”

> Makes you wonder what these sharks ate as nothing would be safe, even the largest whales with these guys around. Perhaps they evolved to keep whale numbers in check and when they ate too many, went extinct.

Teeth still suggest primarily a fish eater. Perhaps there were a lot more fish back then, which is distinctly possible.

“lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago, during the Early Miocene to the Pliocene”.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

The Megalodon went extinct around three million years ago, and nowadays almost all we have to show for it is, ominously, a pile of gigantic teeth. That’s because it, like modern sharks, would have had a skeleton mostly made of cartilage, which doesn’t fossilize well.

That lack of records means it’s hard to measure just how massive the Megalodon was. Past studies have extrapolated its size based on the proportions of its teeth, using the great white shark as a guide. From this, it was estimated to be between 15 and 18 m (49 and 59 ft) long.

The problem is, the great white shark isn’t the closest living relative of the Megalodon. So for the new study, scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Swansea compared it to five living relatives – the great white, the shortfin and longfin mako sharks, the porbeagle and the salmon shark.

The team found that the babies of all these species didn’t change proportions as they grew. That suggested that the Megalodon didn’t either, which makes it easier to extrapolate its size.

“This means we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern forms and project the overall shape as they get larger and larger – right up to a body length of 16 m (52.5 ft),” says Jack Cooper, lead author of the study.

Using this technique, the team estimated that a Megalodon that reached a length of 16 m would have had a head that measured about 4.65 m (15.26 ft) long, a dorsal fin that stood 1.62 m (5.31 ft) tall, and a tail some 3.85 m (12.63 ft) high.

https://newatlas.com/science/megalodon-size-measure-analysis/

Makes you wonder what these sharks ate as nothing would be safe, even the largest whales with these guys around. Perhaps they evolved to keep whale numbers in check and when they ate too many, went extinct.

> it was estimated to be between 15 and 18 m … 16 m.

So that’s confirmed.

> the great white shark isn’t the closest living relative of the Megalodon.

News to me. Wikipedia confirms it. “It was formerly thought to be a member of the family Lamnidae and a close relative of the great white shark. However, it is now classified into the extinct family Otodontidae, which diverged from the great white shark during the Early Cretaceous. Its genus placement is still debated, authors placing it in either Carcharocles, Megaselachus, Otodus, or Procarcharodon. This is because transitional fossils have been found showing that Megalodon is the final chronospecies of a lineage of giant sharks originally of the genus Otodus which evolved during the Paleocene.”

> Makes you wonder what these sharks ate as nothing would be safe, even the largest whales with these guys around. Perhaps they evolved to keep whale numbers in check and when they ate too many, went extinct.

Teeth still suggest primarily a fish eater. Perhaps there were a lot more fish back then, which is distinctly possible.

“lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago, during the Early Miocene to the Pliocene”.

Sand tiger sharks grow to about 8 feet (2.5 meters) long and dwell near beaches in North America, Australia and South Africa

The above teeth are typical of an exclusive fish eating shark. Not disputing that large fish were not on the menu of Megalodon, but with those teeth it could chump through just about anything that swam in the Ocean, but like White Sharks, meat and blubber are sought out and such sharks are known to travel from one mammal habitat (especially seals) to another. With a shark the size of the Megalodon, a seal would be little more than a snack, so it would likely hunt larger prey.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

The Megalodon went extinct around three million years ago, and nowadays almost all we have to show for it is, ominously, a pile of gigantic teeth. That’s because it, like modern sharks, would have had a skeleton mostly made of cartilage, which doesn’t fossilize well.

That lack of records means it’s hard to measure just how massive the Megalodon was. Past studies have extrapolated its size based on the proportions of its teeth, using the great white shark as a guide. From this, it was estimated to be between 15 and 18 m (49 and 59 ft) long.

The problem is, the great white shark isn’t the closest living relative of the Megalodon. So for the new study, scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Swansea compared it to five living relatives – the great white, the shortfin and longfin mako sharks, the porbeagle and the salmon shark.

The team found that the babies of all these species didn’t change proportions as they grew. That suggested that the Megalodon didn’t either, which makes it easier to extrapolate its size.

“This means we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern forms and project the overall shape as they get larger and larger – right up to a body length of 16 m (52.5 ft),” says Jack Cooper, lead author of the study.

Using this technique, the team estimated that a Megalodon that reached a length of 16 m would have had a head that measured about 4.65 m (15.26 ft) long, a dorsal fin that stood 1.62 m (5.31 ft) tall, and a tail some 3.85 m (12.63 ft) high.

https://newatlas.com/science/megalodon-size-measure-analysis/

Makes you wonder what these sharks ate as nothing would be safe, even the largest whales with these guys around. Perhaps they evolved to keep whale numbers in check and when they ate too many, went extinct.

> it was estimated to be between 15 and 18 m … 16 m.

So that’s confirmed.

> the great white shark isn’t the closest living relative of the Megalodon.

News to me. Wikipedia confirms it. “It was formerly thought to be a member of the family Lamnidae and a close relative of the great white shark. However, it is now classified into the extinct family Otodontidae, which diverged from the great white shark during the Early Cretaceous. Its genus placement is still debated, authors placing it in either Carcharocles, Megaselachus, Otodus, or Procarcharodon. This is because transitional fossils have been found showing that Megalodon is the final chronospecies of a lineage of giant sharks originally of the genus Otodus which evolved during the Paleocene.”

> Makes you wonder what these sharks ate as nothing would be safe, even the largest whales with these guys around. Perhaps they evolved to keep whale numbers in check and when they ate too many, went extinct.

Teeth still suggest primarily a fish eater. Perhaps there were a lot more fish back then, which is distinctly possible.

“lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago, during the Early Miocene to the Pliocene”.

Sand tiger sharks grow to about 8 feet (2.5 meters) long and dwell near beaches in North America, Australia and South Africa

The above teeth are typical of an exclusive fish eating shark. Not disputing that large fish were not on the menu of Megalodon, but with those teeth it could chump through just about anything that swam in the Ocean, but like White Sharks, meat and blubber are sought out and such sharks are known to travel from one mammal habitat (especially seals) to another. With a shark the size of the Megalodon, a seal would be little more than a snack, so it would likely hunt larger prey.

Agree.