The megalodon is the largest shark that has ever swam in the ocean. It weighed as much as 18 adult male elephants and had five rows of huge, jagged teeth on either side of its jaw. If a tooth came loose when the shark bit a prey, this ultimate killer shark always had a spare tooth at its disposal.
The megalodon was the terror of the sea
A gigantic monstrosity with a mouth full of butcher’s knives, who searched every corner of the oceans in his eternal quest for a fresh piece of meat.
You could describe the largest shark of all time, the megalodon. The enormous primeval shark was up to 18 metres long and could weigh as much as 50 tonnes, which corresponds to the weight of 18 adult male elephants.
And to be the perfect killer shark, the megalodon had a huge mouth with hundreds of teeth that could tear any prey to shreds.
The megalodon had huge teeth
Because the body of sharks consists mainly of biodegradable cartilage, few well-preserved remains of a megalodon have been found. However, the dorsal vertebrae and teeth have emerged all over the world, and the teeth in particular bear witness to the size and diet of the megalodon.
The megalodon had about 276 teeth that could be up to 18 centimetres in size. They were arranged in five rows in the upper and lower jaws. The megalodon therefore always had extra teeth at its disposal in case a number of them became loose during the fight with prey.
The teeth of the megalodon were sharp and jagged, making them ideal for gnawing meat off a bone. But the prey that ended up in the 3 metre jaws of the megalodon was not that big.
Using bite marks on fossils, the scientists concluded that the megalodon actually preferred prey much smaller than itself, such as turtles, seals and small baleen whales.
The same preferences can also be seen in the white shark, which also hunts mainly for small morsels.
But even though the prey was small, the amount of food was large. Scientists believe that the megalodon consumed around 1100 kilos of meat a day.
And with a bite force of around 18 tonnes, five times that of T. rex, there is no doubt that the megalodon could eat whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted.
The extinction of the megalodon has been much debated
he megalodon lived in the oceans 20 million years ago. Until recently, it was agreed that the primeval shark died out around 2.6 million years ago.
In 2018, however, scientists discovered that the megalodon probably died out a million years earlier, i.e. 3.6 million years ago. It turned out that all fossil remains recorded as less than 3.6 million years old were incorrectly dated or of other species.
But why did the primeval shark disappear in the first place? Research over time has pointed in different directions.
A supernova caused mass mortality in the oceans
For years, the explanation was that the megalodon, along with many other prehistoric marine animals, died during a massive death caused by carcinogenic cosmic radiation from a nearby supernova.
This event took place about 2.6 million years ago and therefore does not correspond to what the most recent research has shown about the time of extinction of the megalodon.
Warm climate and high body temperature
More recent studies suggest that rising sea temperatures meant the end of megalodon.
Using the carbon and oxygen isotopes in the teeth of the megalodon, the scientists found that the huge shark had a body temperature of between 35 and 40°C (104°F to 104°F). With such a high body temperature, the megalodon also had a high metabolic rate, so it needed large meals on a regular basis.
And that became a problem as the climate got warmer.
The high sea temperature probably caused many sea creatures to move to cooler water, which probably made the undersea hunting grounds of the megalodon much more army and threatened the survival of the animal.
The megalodon was competed away by the white shark
However, according to recent research, it may also have been the white shark that killed the basking shark.
The white shark, in Latin Carcharodon carcharias, probably originated in the Pacific Ocean 6 million years ago. 2 million years later, i.e. 4 million years ago, this shark began to spread to other oceans and entered the territory of the megalodon.
So the white shark emerged relatively close to the extinction of the megalodon 3.6 million years ago.
The greedy white shark probably overcame the megalodon because the white shark was smaller and more agile and could therefore more easily hunt small prey, which both sharks preferred.
Megalodon crèche made the giant vulnerable
Another theory states that external factors such as climate change have destroyed the areas where the megalodon raised its young.
In 2010, researchers found the first evidence that the megalodon, like many current shark species, fitted into a kind of underwater crèches. One area in Panama was found to contain a high level of megalodon fangs, most of which came from newborn or juvenile sharks of 4 and 11 metres respectively.
Since then, researchers have found similar sites all over the world, so there is much to suggest that the megalodon protected its offspring in certain areas — for years. In fact, a megalodon was not fully grown until it was 25 years old, so it is possible that the crèches were of great importance for the survival of the species.
According to researchers, climate change may have affected these areas and this was the beginning of the end for megalodons.
Can the megalodon still be alive?
The megalodon is at the centre of popular culture. And the question to what extent the enormous predator is still lurking in the depths has already been raised several times.
Scientists agree that an animal this large could not exist without knowing of its existence.
For even if a large part of the oceans has not yet been explored, a predator such as the megalodon would leave traces, for example in the form of bite marks in prey or broken teeth that are more recent.
