yesammy Shelton went for a Sunday walk with her father on Bawdsey beach in Suffolk, England, looking for shells and fossils, as they usually do. And suddenly, Sammy found a megalodon tooth, the largest shark that ever lived. The boy’s excitement at the 10-centimeter tooth is understandable because even the scientists who have examined it are impressed by its preservation and size.
The megalodon reached 20 meters in length and became extinct about three million years ago, either due to lack of prey due to glaciation or because it failed to adapt its body temperature to the new climatic situation.
Everything indicates that it was replaced by the white shark, one of whose teeth, smaller, is shown in the photo above, in the other hand.
There are those who maintain that this fearsome giant survives in abyssal waters. It is suggested in the movie megalodon (2017, with a sequel scheduled for 2023), which recreates the terror produced by the appearance of one of these gigantic fish. Next to this 21 meter long colossus, the murderer of Shark –Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic– looks like an aquarium minnow.
The theory on which the film is based is real. The suspicion that this prehistoric shark, supposedly extinct almost three million years ago, would still have its habitat in the ocean depths, resists being completely dismissed.
It would not be the first case of creatures mistakenly reported missing. For example, experts were convinced that coelacanths became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, 70 million years ago. The only trace of their existence were their skeletons.
However, one of these ancient marine inhabitants ended up in the nets of fishermen off the coast of South Africa in 1938. And in 1998 another variety was discovered off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. If the coelacanth has managed to hide for 70 million years, couldn’t the megalodon have managed to do the same for about three million years?
a fearsome predator
This aggressive behemoth would make an extremely unpleasant tenant in today’s marine ecosystems. Weighing between 50 and 60 tons, he would need to consume an enormous amount of meat to maintain his strength. Its jaws, about two meters wide, would allow it to engulf most living beings today.
The megalodon’s teeth would calmly destroy a high-speed train
The megalodon was probably one of the largest predators to have ever inhabited this planet. Its jaws seem to have been on a par with those of Tyrannosaurus rex. Australian zoologist Stephen Wroe has calculated that the monstrous shark could close them with a force of more than 18 tons. The megalodon’s teeth would calmly tear apart a high-speed train.
For a predator that inhabited the world’s oceans for about 20 million years, it has left few traces of its passage. Unlike dinosaur bones, shark skeletons tend to fall apart because they are made of cartilage. Practically, the only proof that has come down to us of the existence of this beast are its teeth, of which there are a large number. The last one has been found by Sammy Shelton. More are likely to emerge.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.