[ad_1]
A human could fit inside the Megalodon’s mouth. / VCG /
A human could fit inside the Megalodon’s mouth. / VCG /
The long-extinct Megalodon had a dorsal fin around 1.62 meters tall, about the size of an average human, according to recent research.
For years, researchers knew the length of the famous Great White shark’s ancestor, but did not know the proportions of the rest of its body.
The Otodus Megalodon, the world’s largest shark, was about twice as long as the Great White when it lived between 23 and 3 million years ago.
In studying the ancient shark, scientists have based most of their research on fossilized teeth that were about the size of a human hand.
However, scientists at the University of Bristol and the University of Swansea in the UK have estimated the size of the great shark’s body by analyzing the proportions of its living relatives, not just the size of the teeth and mouth.
“I’ve always been mad at sharks,” said Jack Cooper, the researcher behind these findings.
“As a student, I have worked and dived with great whites in South Africa, protected by a steel cage, of course.
“Megalodon was actually the same animal that inspired me to pursue paleontology in the first place at only six years old … but studying the entire animal is difficult, considering that all we really have are many isolated teeth.”
The tooth of a Megalodon compared to the tooth of a living species of shark .. / VCG /
The tooth of a Megalodon compared to the tooth of a living species of shark .. / VCG /
Cooper has just finished his Master of Paleobiology at the University of Bristol, and his project was supervised by professors from both universities.
Before this study, scientists used to compare the Megalodon to the Great White, just one of its living relatives.
But Cooper expanded that by analyzing data from five other sharks.
With these new data, they calculated that a 16-meter shark would have had a head about 4.65 meters long and its tail about 3.85 meters high.
Catalina Pimiento, one of Cooper’s supervisors, said her team used data from different sharks because “Megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the Great White, but it is equally related to other sharks such as the Makos, the salmon shark and the shortfin mako shark. sardinero, too, like the Great White.
“We collected detailed measurements of the five to make predictions about the Megalodon.”
