Megalodon size

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. • 10. The word megalodon derives from Greek, meaning "giant tooth." The shark's full scientific name is Carcharocles megalodon. • 9. Megalodon was the largest fish that ever lived. The largest individuals measured up to 58.7 feet or even larger. That's about three times as big as the largest • 8. It's thought that megalodon ate 2,500 pounds of food per day. • 7. Most fish are exclusively • 6. Female megalodons may have been about twice as large as the males. Even an infant megalodon was huge, at least 6.6 feet from nose to tail. • 5. Because of its size, megalodon was an apex predator in the ocean. It preyed upon fish, whales, dolphins, seals, and other marine animals. • 4. Even though megalodons and • 3. Fossil remains of the megalodon have been found off the coast of every continent except Antarctica. Between 2007 and 2009, researchers collected a number of juvenile megalodon teeth in the waters off the coast of Panama. They believe this was an ancient nursery area. • 2. Since sharks don't have bones, most of what we know about megalodon comes from its large fossil teeth. The largest megalodon tooth ever found was 6.9 inches long. That's almost three times longer than the average tooth of a modern great white shark. • 1. With a mouth nearly 10 feet wide, megalodon may have had the most powerful bite of all time.

• Afrikaans • العربية • Asturianu • Azərbaycanca • Basa Bali • বাংলা • Bân-lâm-gú • Беларуская • Български • Català • Cebuano • Čeština • Cymraeg • Dansk • Deutsch • Eesti • Ελληνικά • Español • Euskara • فارسی • Français • Frysk • Galego • 한국어 • Հայերեն • हिन्दी • Hrvatski • Ilokano • Bahasa Indonesia • Italiano • עברית • Jawa • ქართული • Қазақша • Latina • Latviešu • Lietuvių • Magyar • Македонски • മലയാളം • मराठी • Bahasa Melayu • Nederlands • 日本語 • Norsk bokmål • Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча • Polski • Português • Română • Русский • Simple English • Slovenčina • Slovenščina • Српски / srpski • Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски • Suomi • Svenska • Tagalog • தமிழ் • Татарча / tatarça • ไทย • Türkçe • Українська • اردو • Tiếng Việt • Winaray • 吴语 • 粵語 • 中文 Genus Carcharodon • • C. arcuatus • C. branneri • C. brevis • C. costae • C. crassidens • C. crassirhadix • C. crassus • C. gibbesi • C. gigas • C. helveticus • C. humilis • C. intermedius • C. latissimus • C. leviathan • C. megalodon • C. megalodon indica • C. megalodon megalodon • C. megalodon polygyra • C. megalodon productus • C. megalodon siculus • C. megalodon yamanarii • C. morricei • C. polygurus • C. polygyrus • C. productus • C. quenstedti • C. rectidens • C. rectideus • C. semiserratus • C. subauriculatus • C. tumidissimus • C. turicensis Genus Megaselachus • • M. arcuatus • M. auriculatus falciformis • M. branneri • M. brevis • M. crassidens • M. crassirhadix • M. crassus • M. gigas • M. heterodon • M. humilis • M. inc...

How did bouncing baby megalodons fuel their impressive embryonic growth? They may have gobbled up their smaller siblings while still in the mother's womb, a survival strategy shared by some modern sharks. Researchers recently calculated the size of megalodon babies by analyzing skeletal fossils of an adult Otodus megalodon that measured about 30 feet (9 meters) long when it died (these monster sharks could likely reach about 66 feet, or 20 m). The scientists then looked at "growth rings" in pieces of the shark's preserved skeleton, similar to the rings in tree trunks used to determine a tree's age. Megalodon — and all sharks, skates and rays — belong to a class of fishes called Chondrichthyes, which have skeletons made of cartilage rather than hard bone. Extinct cartilaginous fish like megalodon and other megatooth sharks are therefore known mostly from their teeth, which were made of calcium and therefore survive in the fossil record longer than these fishes' delicate cartilaginous skeletons. But for the new study, published online Jan. 11 in the journal Historical Biology, the authors examined a rare collection of 150 megalodon vertebrae whose cartilage had mineralized, "the only reasonably preserved vertebral column of the species in the entire world," they wrote. Using computed X-ray tomography (CT) scans, the scientists counted 46 regularly-spaced growth rings in three of the megalodon's vertebrae. They then applied a mathematical growth curve equation that's commonly...

An artist's interpretation of a megalodon hunting an ancient orca-like cetacean. (Image credit: J. J. Giraldo) The megalodon shark was so big and powerful it could devour an orca in a few bites, and was the fastest cruising shark to ever swim the oceans, a new study shows. The finds were revealed thanks to a new 3D model of the long-extinct shark, based on data collected from fossilized teeth and vertebrae, which is giving scientists the best look yet at the size, speed and diet of the infamous "superpredator." The megalodon ( Otodus megalodon) was the largest shark to ever swim through Earth's oceans. It first emerged around 23 million years ago and went extinct about 2.6 million years ago, likely due to the emergence of great white sharks. Like modern sharks, megalodon had a cartilaginous skeleton, which does not easily fossilize, so most of what we know about the ancient leviathan comes from its fossilized teeth, which are around 6 inches (15 centimeters) long, and a few well-preserved vertebrae. As a result, scientists actually know very little about this apex predator. In the new study, researchers combined measurements from an exceptionally well-preserved vertebral column uncovered in Belgium and a set of teeth found in the U.S. to create a rough blueprint of the megalodon's skeleton. The team then used body scans of a great white shark ( Carcharodon carcharias) to fill in the gaps and estimate the amount of soft tissue that would have surrounded megalodon's bones. T...

There's a reason Venice is often referred to as the "shark tooth capital of the world." Ten million years ago, the area was underwater and teeming with sharks. The seas receded over time, causing the prehistoric sharks to die. And while their skeletons disintegrated, their fossilized teeth remained, according to Megalodon are giant prehistoric sharks that lived between 23 to 3.6 billion years ago. According to Smithsonian, megalodons could be up to 60-feet long and weigh up to 50 tons. To put it in simpler terms: Megalodons were longer than school buses and as heavy as a railroad car. At three times the size of a great white shark, they remain the largest shark to ever live in the ocean.

The Otodus megalodon, commonly called the megalodon, is famous for its massive size. Weighing up to 50 tons and measuring up to about 60 feet in length, the meg was the largest shark ever to exist. But a new study published in Historical Biology found not all megalodons reached such gargantuan sizes. Instead, size varied based on geography, with the larger individuals living in colder areas. Researchers re-examined body size trends and proposed nursery areas from previous studies. Formerly, areas in warmer waters were thought to be nurseries because scientists found evidence of smaller sized megalodons living in those regions. “It is still possible that O. megalodon could have utilized nursery areas to raise young sharks. But our study shows that fossil localities consisting of smaller megalodon teeth may instead be a product of individual sharks attaining smaller overall body sizes simply as a result of warmer water,” says study author Harry Maisch from Bergen Community College and Fairleigh Dickinson University in a The authors also noted a “curious body size pattern across different populations of O. megalodon that has never been reported to date,” per the study. The pattern follows what’s known as This drawing shows the general body size pattern of the iconic extinct megatooth shark, Otodus megalodon, using hypothetical silhouettes. DePaul University / Kenshu Shimada “Our study may well represent the first possible case of Bergmann’s rule demonstrated for elasmobranchs...

The Megalodon was the largest known predator in the history of the Earth, at least based on its weight. The sperm whale is a little bit longer, but also lighter. Over the years the size estimations of the Megalodon shark have changed, as the science surrounding it's evolution has progressed. One of the issues in estimating it's true size is that the skeletons of sharks are made out of cartilage which does not easily Most current, scientifically accepted estimates for the Megalodon's maximum size fall into the 60-70 foot range, with a weight of 50-70 tons. Compare that to the Great White Shark that maxes out at about 21 feet and 3 1/2 tons. The Historical Background In 1909, Bashford Dean made the first attempt to reconstruct the Megalodon's jaw, in order to get a true estimation of size. Based on the jaw reconstruction, Megalodon was estimated to be 30 metres (98 feet) long. That was just the first thought on the size of Megalodon, though. Over time, the development of scientific methods led to better ways of determining the size of After careful consideration of Dean's findings, the size of Megalodon was revised downward, to be about 70 percent of the original assumption (around 21 meters, or 68.6 feet). That size has held up relatively well through the modern day, and has been reaffirmed with newer techniques used for studying fossil evidence. Originally the Megalodon was believed to be closely related to the Great White, but as more fossil evidence has emerged, it's bee...