Teeth helped solve the mystery
An international team of researchers has used zinc isotopes in the teeth of living and extinct sharks as a tool to understand the diet of long-dead animals.
What did the megalodon actually look like? According to scientists, this is a prehistoric mystery
Chemical traces in the teeth suggested that the great white shark and megalodon once had a similar position in the food chain and could compete for the same food, including whales, dolphins and porpoises. “Megalodon coexisted with the great white shark in a time frame called the early Pliocene, and our zinc data suggest that they may have occupied the same position,” he said. Reuters paleobiologist and co-author of the study Kenshu Shimada of DePaul University in Chicago.
Using zinc isotopes, researchers investigated the diet of #megalodon – the largest #shark to have ever lived – & reasons for its extinction. New paper in @NatureComms by Jeremy McCormack (@MPI_EVA_Leipzig, @goetheuni) et al. See: https://t.co/BDDF8VUvh4 & https://t.co/0rgr6l0MX8 pic.twitter.com/FbLmuJDTnH
– MPI-EVA Leipzig (@MPI_EVA_Leipzig) May 31, 2022
In addition to climate change and other environmental pressures, this could be one of the factors that led to the demise of the megalodon, scientists said. “This is another piece of evidence that at the time they were both still alive, there was competition in the oceans between the modern shark and the megalodon for water food sources,” he said. BBC Professor Thomas Tutken of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, who led the study.
–
Source: Youtube
Little knowledge of the prehistoric creature
Catalina Pimient from the University of Swansea said about the research that more work is needed to solve the mystery of what happened to the megalodon. According to her, extinctions in the last decade have been studied from many different perspectives, with studies suggesting several factors. “It remains a mystery what the megalodon fed and how much it competed with other sharks,” she added.
The great shark, which scientists have been watching for years, has reappeared. This time in the USA
Scientists think he had fish rather than marine mammals on his diet, unlike his cousin, who now hunts seals, sea lions, dolphins and small whales. He is also not expected to be the prey of his successor.
“Megalodon is usually portrayed in novels and movies as a super-large, monstrous shark, but in reality we still know very little about this extinct animal,” Kensha Shimada told CNN.
Megalodon
– He lived about 23 to 3.6 million years ago.
– His name means “big tooth”.
– He was three times the size of a great white shark. It could grow up to 18 meters in length and weigh up to 60 tons.
–
