[ad_1]
A new study led by the Bristol university and Swansea University has revealed the size of the legendary giant shark Megalodon, including fins the size of an adult human.
There is a great fascination with determining the size of the largest sharks, but this can be difficult for fossil forms where teeth are often all that remains.
The most fearsome living shark today is the Great White, over six meters (20 feet) long, which bites with a force of two tons.
Its fossil relative, the Hollywood movie star, the great tooth shark Megalodon, lived 23 to about three million years ago, was more than twice the length of a Great White, and had a bite force of more than ten tons. .
Megalodon fossils are mostly huge triangular cutting teeth larger than a human hand.
Paleoartist reconstruction of a 16 m adult Megalodon. Reconstruction of Oliver E. Demuth. Credit: Oliver E. Demuth
Jack Cooper and his colleagues at the University of Swansea and the University of Bristol used a number of mathematical methods to pin down the size and proportions of this monster, making close comparisons with a variety of living relatives with ecological and physiological similarities to Megalodon.
The project was overseen by shark expert Dr. Catalina Pimiento, from the University of Swansea, and Professor Mike Benton, paleontologist from the University of Bristol. Dr. Humberto Ferrón from Bristol also collaborated.
Comparison of the dorsal fin of an adult Megalodon with a 1.6 m diver. Fin reconstruction by Oliver E. Demuth. Credit: Oliver E. Demuth
Jack Cooper, now starting his PhD at Swansea University, said: “I’ve always been angry with sharks. As a student, I have worked and dived with great whites in South Africa, protected by a steel cage, of course. It’s that sense of danger, but also that sharks are such beautiful and well-adapted animals, that makes them so attractive to study.
“The megalodon was actually the same animal that inspired me to pursue paleontology in the first place when I was only six years old, so I was on the moon for a chance to study it.
“This was the project of my dreams. But studying the whole animal is difficult considering that all we really have are many isolated teeth. “
Previously, the fossil shark, formally known as Otodus megalodon, was only compared to the Great White. Jack and his colleagues, for the first time, expanded this analysis to include five modern sharks.
Dr. Catalina Pimiento said: “Megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the Great White, but it is equally related to other macro-predatory sharks such as the Makos, the Salmon Shark and the Porbeagle, as well as the Great White. We put together detailed measurements of the five to make predictions about the Megalodon. “
Computational reconstruction of the size and proportions of Megalodon at different stages of life: a) 16 m adult with 12 estimated body dimensions recorded; b) 3m newborn and c) 8m juvenile. Credit: Oliver E. Demuth
Professor Benton added: “Before we could do anything, we had to test whether these five modern sharks changed proportions as they grew. If, for example, they had been like humans, where babies have large heads and short legs, we would have had some difficulty projecting the adult proportions of such a large extinct shark.
“But we were surprised and relieved to find that, in fact, the young of all these modern predatory sharks start out as small adults and do not change in proportion as they grow.”
Jack Cooper added: “This means that we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern shapes and project the general shape as they get bigger and bigger, up to a body length of 16 meters.”
The results suggest that a 16-meter-long Otodus megalodon likely had a round head that was 4.65 meters long, a dorsal fin that was approximately 1.62 meters high, and a tail that was around 3.85 meters high.
This means that an adult human could stand on the back of this shark and would be roughly the same height as the dorsal fin.
Reconstruction of the size of Megalodon’s body parts represents a critical step towards a better understanding of the physiology of this giant and the intrinsic factors that may have made it prone to extinction.
Reference: “Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction ”by Jack A. Cooper, Catalina Pimiento, Humberto G. Ferrón and Michael J. Benton, September 3, 2020, Scientific reports.
DOI: 10.1038 / s41598-020-71387-y
[ad_2]
