The megalodon was one of the most terrifying aquatic predators to ever haunt the Earth's oceans. It reached a length of at least 15 meters (yes, The 2018 film takes some liberties on that front). But if you thought that millions of years after extinction it was already at the height of its ability to scare people out of the water, think again.
Not only did the megalodon give birth to the world's largest shark babies, but it achieved that size (in part) by trying its hand at a practice called Oophagy-Young Sharks, according to a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Historical Biology ate their undeveloped siblings.
Researchers from Chicago and New Jersey note that like contemporary lamniform sharks, megalodon babies would most likely feed on unhatched eggs in the womb to grow. This certainly resulted in fewer sharks, but the ones who survived this deadly sibling rivalry were huge - bigger than an adult human.
Using CT scanning techniques, which use multiple X-rays to reconstruct 3D structures on vertebral fossils from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, the team was able to calculate the rough length of a megalodon body at birth - with results that are about 2 Meters.
"As one of the largest carnivores that ever existed on earth, deciphering such growth parameters of O. megalodon is critical to understanding the role of large carnivores in the context of marine ecosystem development," said Kenshu Shimada, paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago and lead author of the study.
In addition, the study found that the shark grew at an average rate of 16 centimeters per year for the first half century of its life. A growth curve model showed that the sharks had a life expectancy of 88-100 years.
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