Of all the living fish in the sea, we know the whale shark as the largest. At a distance of up to eight or nine meters, they obscure all other sharks that live in the ocean - and Women come first when it comes to size stakes. But that was certainly not always the case, as scientists have finally confirmed.
A study published in Historical Biology has confirmed that this is now extinct Otodus megalodon or Megatooth shark, which once reached a length of up to 15 meters and exceeded today's whale shark by almost seven meters.
Commonly depicted as the gigantic monster of a shark in films like The Meg from 2018, the real megalodon was a far cry from the 75-foot beast that makes moviegoers scream. But even if the length wasn't quite as the movies suggest, the Meg was the biggest fish in the sea for a while.
The study proved the length of the shark by taking measurements on today's lamniforms (the group of sharks to which the megalodon belonged) to estimate the body length of extinct forms by evaluating their teeth. The megalodon's size was also shown to be an outlier, doubling the general limit of smaller lamniforms.
Kenshu Shimada, paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago and lead author on the study, said in a press release: "Lamniform sharks have represented large carnivores in the oceans since the age of the dinosaurs, so it is reasonable to say they must have played an important one Role in shaping the marine ecosystems we know today. "
Co-authors and professors of environmental science at William Paterson University, Michael Griffiths and Martin Becker, said, "This is compelling evidence of the truly extraordinary size of megalodon." And "This work represents a decisive advance in our understanding of the development of this ocean liner," respectively.
But while the size sounds intimidating, and the idea of a gigantic megatooth shark roaming the ocean could have a tremor in its fins, rest assured that outside of Hollywood, you have nothing to fear from what the now-extinct predator has to offer Has.
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