The Megalodon differed from a giant great white shark

A new analysis of fossil evidence reveals that the megalodon, an ancient shark often depicted as a super-sized great white, was actually a very different beast. A team of shark scientists concluded that this fearsome predator was longer, thinner and hunted in a different way.

He is well known for his depiction of “. meg movie franchise, Otodus megalodon It became extinct about 3.5 million years ago. It was one of the largest marine predators of all time, but no complete skeleton has ever been found, so we don’t know exactly how big it was.

2022 survey by jack cooper Doctors from Swansea University, UK, et al. IRSNB P 9893, It is housed at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. They found it to be a stocky, powerful shark, similar to the great white shark, built to attack at breakneck speeds to attack its prey.carcharodon carcharius) current –?? but at 15.9 meters long, it is about three times longer.

charles underwood Researchers from Birkbeck, University of London, said the study made “tenuous assumptions” about megalodon’s size, mainly based on the fact that it has teeth similar to great white sharks, although it is much larger. ing. He is part of a group of 26 shark experts aiming to set the record straight with new research.

Underwood said Cooper’s team didn’t realize how incomplete the partial skeleton was. The vertebrae lack the typical size of a shark, tapering toward both the tail and the head, indicating that much of the vertebrae are missing, he said.

The researchers of the new study say that the strength of the spinal column suggests a slender body shape than the great white shark, which would make megalodon sharks very unwieldy.

“It almost certainly doesn’t feed like modern great white sharks,” Underwood said. “You wouldn’t just hover over the ocean floor, wait for the whale to move over it, and then hit the whale from below and basically tear it apart. It’s better than an ambush predator. , you’re going to need more straight-line tracking, longer tracking, because you don’t have top speed. You don’t have acceleration.”

Based on other partial fossils, the largest known specimen of Megalodon was estimated to be 20 meters long. Mr. Underwood believes that it was actually 20% longer than him, and that he was 24 meters long.

But Professor Cooper dismissed the new study as too simplistic, favoring a reconstruction of a shorter, stockier megalodon. “The bottom line is, no matter which theory you support about its body shape, it was a very large shark,” he says. “Of course, a complete skeleton would go a long way in helping us learn more. But I also don’t think we should think that this settles all debates about this very charismatic animal.”

However, the chances of finding a complete, well-preserved specimen may be low. eva stewart A professor at Britain’s Southampton University, who was not involved in the study, said he had recovered many megalodon teeth while searching for a new living species, but had seen no sign of a more complete specimen.

“I think the rest of the skeleton is just not well preserved,” she says. “For megalodon, there’s actually no fossil evidence at all.”