The world's largest shark :
The first megalodon fossils (Otodus megalodon, formerly Carcharodon or Carcharocles megalodon) were discovered 20 million years ago. The enormous shark dominated the oceans for the next 13 million years before becoming extinct only 3.6 million years ago.
Megalodon was not only the world's largest shark, but also one of the largest fish ever to exist. It grew to be between 15 and 18 metres long, three times the length of the largest recorded great white shark.
These figures are based on the size of the animal's teeth, which can grow to be 18 centimeter's long in the absence of a complete megalodon skeleton. In fact, megalodon simply means "large tooth." These teeth can reveal a lot about what these enormous animals ate.
A megalodon tooth next to a tooth of a great white shark.
What did megalodon eat?
'With its large serrated teeth, megalodon would have eaten meat - most likely whales and large fish, as well as other sharks,' Emma explains. If you're that big, you'll need to eat a lot of food, so you'll need big prey.' Animals as small as dolphins and as large as humpback whales would have been included.
We also have fossilized whale bones that show megalodon's feeding habits. Some of these have been discovered with megalodon tooth cut marks etched in the surface. Others include the tips of teeth that were broken off in the bone during a feeding frenzy millions of years ago.
What did megalodon look like?
Most reconstructions depict Megalodon as a massive great white shark. This is now thought to be incorrect.
When compared to the great white, Megalodon had a much shorter nose, or rostrum, and a flatter, almost squashed jaw. It, too, had extra-long pectoral fins to support its weight and size, just like the blue shark.
'A lot of reconstructions show megalodon as a larger version of the great white shark because people thought they were related for a long time,' Emma explains. 'We now know that this is not the case, and megalodon is actually the last member of a different lineage of sharks.'
Otodus obliquus, a 55-million-year-old shark that grew to around 10 metres in length, is the oldest definitive ancestor of megalodon. However, the evolutionary history of this shark is thought to date back to Cretalamna appendiculata, which is 105 million years old, making the megalodon lineage over 100 million years old.
'As we discovered more fossils, we realised that the great white shark's ancestor lived alongside megalodon. 'Some scientists believe they were even competing with each other,' Emma says.
Comments