Latest examine reveals nobody nonetheless is aware of what the Megalodon actually appeared like

A brand new scientific examine exhibits that every one beforehand proposed physique types of the big Megalodon, or megatooth shark, which lived almost worldwide roughly 15-3.6 million years in the past, stay within the realm of speculations.

“The study may appear to be a step backward in science, but the continued mystery makes paleontology, the study of prehistoric life, a fascinating and exciting scientific field,” mentioned Kenshu Shimada, DePaul University paleobiology professor and a coauthor of the examine. This newest analysis shedding mild on the fact concerning the present understanding of the physique form of the Megalodon (formally known as Otodus megalodon) seems within the worldwide journal Historical Biology.

Otodus megalodon is usually portrayed as a super-sized, monstrous shark in novels and movies such because the 2018 sci-fi movie “The Meg.” Previous research counsel that the shark probably reached lengths of at the least 50 ft (15 meters) and presumably as a lot as 65 ft (20 meters).

“This new study shows that there are currently no scientific means to support or refute the accuracy of any of the previously published body forms of O. megalodon,” famous lead creator Phillip Sternes, who graduated from DePaul in 2019 and is presently a Ph.D. candidate on the University of California, Riverside. Shimada mentored Sternes in his DePaul lab in Chicago, and the brand new examine moreover consists of Shimada’s present graduate scholar, Jake Wood, as coauthor.

Otodus megalodon is understood solely from its tooth and vertebrae within the fossil report, and historically the trendy nice white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) was used as a mannequin for the physique type of O. megalodon. Carcharodon carcharias belongs to the shark household Lamnidae, or lamnids, additionally together with the mako, porbeagle, and salmon sharks, and they’re regionally endothermic (partially warm-blooded), permitting them to be lively predators. Otodus megalodon just isn’t a lamnid shark, however it was beforehand inferred to even have been regionally endothermic. Based on the inference, one more earlier examine used two-dimensional geometric form analyses on the physique types of trendy lamnids to suggest an inferred physique type of O. megalodon.

The new examine by Sternes, Wood and Shimada examined whether or not such a two-dimensional method can really differentiate the physique types represented by trendy endothermic (warm-blooded) species from these of recent ectothermic (cold-blooded) ones throughout the shark order known as Lamniformes, which additionally consists of Otodus megalodon. The examine strongly signifies that, two-dimensionally, there isn’t a relationship between thermophysiology and physique kind in lamniforms. “Although it is still possible that O. megalodon could have resembled the modern great white shark or lamnids, our results suggest that the two-dimensional approach does not necessarily decisively allow the body form reconstruction for O. megalodon,” Wood mentioned.

“All previously proposed body forms of Otodus megalodon should be regarded as speculations from the scientific standpoint,” Sternes mentioned. “Any meaningful discussion about the body form of O. megalodon would require the discovery of at least one complete, or nearly complete, skeleton of the species in the fossil record,” added Wood. “The fact that we still don’t know exactly how O. megalodon looked keeps our imagination going,” Shimada mentioned. “This is exactly why the science of paleontology continues to be an exciting academic field. We’ll continue looking for more clues in the fossil record.”