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A new study revealed the full size of a prehistoric mega shark made famous in Hollywood movies.
Previously, only the length of the megalodon had been estimated, but a team from the University of Bristol and the University of Swansea determined the size of the rest of its body, including fins the size of a full adult human.
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The Great White Shark – Featured in the 1975 blockbuster film Jaws – It is a distant descendant of the megalodon and usually measures more than six meters in length.
The researchers used mathematical methods and comparisons with living relatives to find the total size of the megalodon, which lived from about 23 million to three million years ago but has most recently garnered fame in Hollywood movies including The meg.
The results suggest that a 16-meter megalodon likely had a head about 4.65 meters long, a dorsal fin 1.62 meters high, and a tail about 3.85 meters high.
This means that an adult human could stand on the shark’s back and be roughly the same height as the dorsal fin.
Jack Cooper, who has completed a master of science in paleobiology at the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, described the study as his “dream project.”
“Sharks have always angered me. As a student, I have worked and dived with great whites in South Africa, protected by a steel cage, of course, ”he said.
“It’s that sense of danger, but also that sharks are such beautiful and well-adapted animals that makes them so attractive to study.”
My first job is published! Derived from my master’s thesis @BristolPalaeo, we investigated the individual body dimensions of Megalodon. So far, only the total length of this iconic extinct shark has been calculated, based on Great White Shark estimates: https: //t.co/eqJkIhESkK pic.twitter.com/Y76VLC4O8T
– Jack Cooper ???? (@CooperPalaeo) September 3, 2020
The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, was supervised by shark expert Dr. Catalina Pimiento, from Swansea University, and Professor Mike Benton, a paleontologist from Bristol.
Dr Pimiento said: “The megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the great white shark, but it is equally related to other macro-predatory sharks such as the makos, salmon shark and porbeagle, as well as the great white shark. We collected detailed measurements of all five to make predictions about the megalodon. “
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“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 over the moon to have a chance to study it,” Cooper said.
“This was the project of my dreams. But studying the whole animal is difficult considering that all we really have are many isolated teeth. “
The researchers first tested whether modern megalodon-related sharks changed proportions as they grew, but found that this was not the case.
“This means that we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern shapes and project the overall shape as they get bigger and bigger, up to a body length of 16 meters,” Cooper said.
What is a goblin shark?
Forget about the great white shark from Jaws or the megalodon from The Meg – there’s a new superstar shark in town, and it will give you more nightmares than the two put together. Meet the goblin shark.
This four-meter-long secret fish was first found off the east coast of Japan, where it was described in 1898. With its unusually long snout and fleshy skin tone, the shark was named tenguzame, a reference to a Mythical Japanese monster with elongated face, pink skin, and demonic jaws, which led to the western translation, “goblin shark.”
In recent years, rare video footage has shown just how amazing their jaws are. First, the goblin shark uses electroreceptors in its long nose to detect the fish’s electric fields. Then when the prey is located, it uses the natural buoyancy provided by its large, oil-rich liver to silently float towards it. When the unsuspecting fish approaches, SMASH! – a pair of extendable jaws filled with nail-like teeth protrude from his face.
In every way, the goblin shark is a creature ready to be exploited by Hollywood. Let’s just hope it doesn’t follow the path of many of its shark cousins and is exploited by fishing fleets as well.
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