Shark experts now disagree over the apex predator’s shape and size
PALAEONTOLOGY
A bold new study claims we’ve had the megalodon all wrong. According to the study, the prehistoric predator Otodus megalodon may have been more of a long and slender shark than the chunky beast we imagine today.
Nose to tail, the megalodon is generally thought to have been 15-20m (50-65ft) long. It dominated Earth’s seas between 15 to 3.6 million years ago, but very little evidence of it exists in the fossil record – with only
“It claims the animal was more comparable to the much slimmer, modern-day mako shark”
teeth and vertebrae available rather than any complete skeletons.
That’s why some estimations of its dimensions have been based on that of the modern great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), giving megalodon a thick and rounded figure. But the new study, published in journal Palaeontologia Electronica, argues that the megalodon wasn’t just a bigger version of the great white. In fact, it claims the animal was more comparable to the much slimmer, modern-day mako shark.
The new study, led by a team in the US, used CT scans of a live great white shark to make comparisons with the megalodon’s reconstructed spinal column.
“This new finding marks a major scientific breakthrough in the quest to decipher what megalodon looked like,” said the study’s first author, Phillip Sternes, a biologist at the University of California, Riverside.
A longer shape would have given the megalodon a longer digestive canal, which would have made it easier to absorb nutrients, and meant the ancient shark
