15 million years earlier than films like Jaws and Open Water gave swimmers the heebie-jeebies, a prehistoric shark species known as Otodus megalodon reached gargantuan sizes. Researchers have reassessed simply how giant the now-extinct beast would have been—and the outcomes are fin-tastic.
To refine its personal estimates of megalodon’s measurement, a global group of biologists, paleontologists, and anatomists analyzed partial megalodon fossils alongside the morphology of each present and extinct shark species. From this knowledge they extrapolated that the prehistoric shark, typically known as a megatooth shark, might have grown to a most measurement of 80 ft (24 meters) in size. Their examine, revealed at the moment within the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, additionally offers potential perception into why sure shark species had been in a position to obtain gigantism, whereas others remained child sharks by comparability (doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo).
Based mostly on a partial 36-foot (11-meter) fossilized megalodon vertebral column (backbone) beforehand unearthed in Belgium, the group investigated how huge the shark’s different physique elements might need been. Led by paleobiologist Kenshu Shimada of DePaul College, they in contrast the shark’s backbone to the bodily proportions of 145 residing shark species and 20 extinct shark species.
Because of this evaluation and their assumption that the megalodon’s physique was just like that of most sharks, the researchers estimated {that a} megalodon with a 36-foot-long backbone would have had a 6-foot-long (1.8-meter-long) head and 12-foot-long (3.6-meter-long) tail. In complete, this particular person would have been a whopping 54 ft lengthy (16.4 meters).
In the event you assume that’s huge, you’re in for a shock. The researchers utilized these proportions to an assumed megalodon vertebrae found in Denmark—a few of the largest megalodon vertebrae ever unearthed. The group concluded that the Danish shark would have been 80 ft lengthy (24.3 meters) and weighed 94 tons.
“The size of 24.3 meters is at the moment the most important potential cheap estimate for O. megalodon that may be justified primarily based on science and the current fossil file,” Phillip Sternes, a co-author of the examine and a biologist at SeaWorld San Diego, stated in a DePaul College assertion.
However what did a megalodon appear to be? As a result of an entire skeleton has by no means been discovered, students can solely examine the prehistoric beast by analyzing partial stays and evaluating them to different shark species. Its serrated enamel resemble these of nice whites, nevertheless, so each academia and the leisure business (in addition to this text’s function picture) have tended to depict the extinct species as a huge nice white shark.
However the brand new examine “has solidified the concept O. megalodon was not merely a huge model of the modern-day nice white shark, supporting our earlier examine,” Sternes defined.
“What units our examine aside from all earlier papers on physique measurement and form estimates of O. megalodon is using a very new strategy that doesn’t rely solely on the fashionable nice white shark,” added Jake Wooden, a co-author and biologist on the Florida Atlantic College.
In reality, Wooden, Sternes, and their colleagues theorized that the megalodon would have appeared slimmer than the cumbersome nice white, extra akin to the lemon shark. They then famous that at the moment’s big marine creatures—similar to whale sharks, basking sharks, and whales—even have extra slender and hydrodynamic types. This realization led them to hypothesize that cumbersome marine vertebrates, similar to nice white sharks, can’t develop to monumental sizes (phew!) with out altering their bodily kind—in any other case, swimming would change into too inefficient.
“Many interpretations we made are nonetheless tentative, however they’re data-driven and can function cheap reference factors for future research on the biology of O. megalodon,” concluded Shimada.
It’s price emphasizing that with out entry to a whole megalodon skeleton, the group’s data-driven strategy necessitated a good quantity of guesswork and assumptions. Moreover, shark physique proportions fluctuate dramatically, so evaluating them to one another may not result in correct conclusions. Lastly, whereas assuming that vertebrae sizes correlate with physique size is logical, it’s not foolproof. It stays to be seen whether or not future fossil discoveries will show them proper.
In the event you’re feeling grateful that we now not should share the oceans with megalodons, I’m afraid there’s some unhealthy information: the examine additionally revealed that at the moment’s nice white shark could have been partially answerable for the megalodon’s extinction 5 million years in the past.
(Run away, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo…)
