In a new study, experts warn that they have no idea what this legendary creature really looked like, that all previously proposed body shapes of the gigantic megalodon remain “in the realm of speculation.”
The megalodon ( Otodus megalodon) sailed the seas approximately 15 to 3.6 million years ago, being the largest shark that has ever existed on Earth, with a length of at least 15 meters, based on its gigantic teeth .
a great mystery
Although it’s entirely possible that the megalodon resembled the extant great white shark ( Carcharodon carcharias ), according to new research by paleontologists at the University of California, Riverside, DePaul University, and the Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Worth State University. Hays, the body shape of Otodus megalodon can only be speculated based on the current fossil record: there is no scientific means to support or refute any of the previously published body shapes of this great creature.
Was it a large thick muscular unit like the great white shark? Maybe a little thinner and more pointed like the goblin shark? The only thing we can say is… “it is not known”. We will continue to look for more clues in the fossil record, experts say.
Based on fossil evidence, megalodon size estimates vary significantly, from about 11 meters to more than 40 meters long.
While there is no doubt that they existed or were giants, there is only evidence of the megalodon from ancient fossilized teeth and vertebrae.
“Any meaningful discussion of the body shape of Otodus megalodon would require the discovery of at least one complete, or nearly complete, skeleton of the species in the fossil record,” says Jake Wood of the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organism Biology at the University of California at Riverside and co-author of the paper published in the journal Historical Biology.
Referencia: Phillip C. Sterne et al. Body forms of extant lamniform sharks (Elasmobranchii: Lamniformes), and comments on the morphology of the extinct megatooth shark, Otodus megalodon, and the evolution of lamniform thermophysiology. Historical Biology, in press; doi: 10.1080/08912963.2021.2025228
