Today in Human Ecology we learned about a species of a “super shark” called a Magalodon. Our professor showed us a fossilized tooth of this monster shark; it seemed to be bigger than his entire hand. Megalodons are several times larger than the Great White shark, with females reaching in little over 17m in length.
The Megalodon is considered to be long extinct, as there are no fossils younger than 2.6 million years.
I wouldn’t want to be in the water when this beast was there.
Can you imagine!? SO scary…
You probably saw this in class today, but…
https://images.app.goo.gl/4WnY7pqVYpLhPw66
Also, there is a somewhat disappointing movie called The Meg, but it does portray a Megaladon doing it’s thing.
Brrrrr…
I have hundreds of (smaller) fossilized shark teeth that I have found over the years and dream of the day I find a megalodon tooth lol.
Species keep getting smaller and smaller as the eons go by.
Same with technology…Smaller and more efficient.
My kids favorite shark, the name sounds like a Pokémon so I’m sure that helps
The first species were pretty small. The first mammals were also pretty small. Then, they became larger. So if that is a fact, am I lying. (name the movie).
Not necessarily. Horses for example are much larger today than they were originally. People are larger today too, but not as dramatically as horses.
They are fascinating beasts to think those things were actually in the water. I am scared of a nurse shark I would never get in the water if those were still around.
Artificial selection also makes some domesticated dog breeds larger than wolves.
We’re also smaller than (at least some of) our direct human ancestors (not to mention Sapien brains are shrinking).
Extinction events always take out the largest players. That’s why Africa has only had the largest mammals on Earth for less than 13,000 years.
We don’t actually know (for sure) how big they were. All we have are teeth.
Just because no one has caught one does not necessarily mean it is extinct.
