The megalodon, immortalized as the monstrous shark in the film “In Troubled Waters,” was indeed an impressive sea creature, but a new study of its fossil remains released Monday describes it as thinner than previously portrayed.
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Researchers estimated its size to be 15 to 20 meters long, as it became extinct from the oceans 3.6 million years ago. An error rate that can be explained by the small number of remaining fossils, teeth and incomplete vertebral assemblies.
Above all, it was said to have the same impressive profile as the only large shark in existence today, the great white shark.
Failed, says the study published in the renowned journal Palaeontologia Electronica, which depicts a slimmer animal modeled on the current Mako shark.
“Our team reexamined the fossil record and found that Megalodon was much thinner than previously thought,” biologist Phillip Sternes of the University of California, Riverside, said in a statement.
“Nevertheless, it would have been a formidable predator at the top of the marine food chain,” he added.
Based on this new analysis, the researchers assign it a very specific behavior. Therefore, due to his very long digestive tract, he would not have had to hunt as often, which is appropriate for his size.
The latter could also have proven to be a disadvantage when stockier but also faster predators came along.
Megalodon “may not have been a strong swimmer compared to the great white shark,” said study co-author Kenshu Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago.
One of the theories explaining the extinction of Odontus megalodon is based on the scarcity of its prey. But Mr. Sternes suggests a different scenario.
“I believe a combination of factors led to its extinction, but one may have been the appearance of the great white shark, which may have been more agile and therefore a better predator than megalodon,” he said.
To get an accurate picture of the animal's true form, we would need to get our hands on a more complete skeleton than the few available, Shimada said.
He added: “The fact that we don't know exactly what Otodus megalodon looked like leaves our imagination running wild.” And that of the filmmakers.