Was megalodon only a gigantic model of a Great White that stalked the ocean some 4 million years in the past?
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One of the biggest sharks to ever stalk the world’s oceans, megalodon, is commonly depicted as a huge nice white shark; an outsized model of one in every of right now’s prime predators. But scientists solely know of the meg, which lived some 3.6 million years in the past, due to fossil tooth and a few vertebrae. So did it actually appear like the fearsome nice white?
Hollywood definitely thinks so (with just a few artistic liberties, in fact)! However, a brand new examine argues we principally don’t know what the megalodon seemed like.
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“This examine might seem like a step backward in science,” mentioned Kenshu Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul University and co-author on the paper, in a press launch. “But the continued thriller makes paleontology, the examine of prehistoric life, a captivating and thrilling scientific area.”
The analysis, which seems within the journal Historical Biology on Feb. 6, reassessed a earlier examine that argued the physique form of the megalodon is likely to be associated to the best way it regulates physique warmth. Megalodons belong to an order of sharks referred to as the lamniformes and it was believed to be partially warm-blooded. The outdated examine argued we may reliably make a case in regards to the meg’s physiology by evaluating this with modern-day warm-blooded sharks. The new examine argues that premise is invalid.
The researchers write that whether or not a shark is warm-blooded or cold-blooded would not have a lot bearing on its physique form, at the very least while you have a look at it two-dimensionally.
Scientists could make inferences in regards to the dimension of megalodon primarily based on fossil tooth, evaluating the traditional chompers with different members within the meg’s shark household. Some of those estimates counsel megalodon grew to virtually 60 toes in size, about 3 times greater than a fantastic white. Unfortunately, that is about so far as we are able to go.
“Any significant dialogue in regards to the physique type of O. megalodon would require the invention of at the very least one full, or practically full, skeleton of the species within the fossil document,” mentioned James Wood, a graduate pupil at DePaul and co-author of the examine, in a press launch.
Of course, all of this science cannot get in the best way of a very good Hollywood script, can it? Jason Statham is about to struggle one other nice white-like Meg within the Meg 2, based on a current report by Variety.