Meet the shark that dwarfed Jaws and bit more durable than a T-Rex

Imagine an unlimited shark weighing twice as a lot as a humpback whale. This large predator is making its manner via coastal waters off Africa: its physique shifting as if to the rhythm of a beating drum, its scythe-like fin, taller than a person, parting the waves.

The megalodon, aka Otodus megalodon, or the “big meg”, is the most important predator that ever existed. Conservative estimates put its weight at 50 tonnes, greater than half the burden of an grownup blue whale, whereas some recommend as a lot as 100 tonnes.

By comparability, the most important sharks alive as we speak weigh a mere two tonnes, the most important orcas just a little greater than six.

Either could be only a snack for the megalodon, offering sufficient sustenance for just a few days, per week at most.

Our large meg can scent a pod of baleen whales, certainly one of which is harm. The nice shark, many instances the scale of any of those creatures, approaches from behind and brutally assaults the injured whale.

The megalodon is business-like in its butchering, slicing off the tail flukes of its prey with a single chunk of its ten-ft-wide jaws, then severing the creature’s pectoral fins, leaving it helpless. There is then a second of quiet because the terrified and agonised whale is left bleeding and helpless within the water till merciful loss of life takes it.

Such scenes are prone to have been witnessed many instances from land by our distant ancestors, Australopithecus, and probably impressed each concern and awe.

Then, someday, the final megalodon died and first-hand data of its behaviour could be misplaced endlessly.

But the impression the residing beast made on our ancestors’ psyches absolutely joined that of myriad different long-lost predators, spawning nebulous fears of monsters as diverse as dragons, krakens and, with Hollywood no less than, cruel gigantic sharks.

Yet the megalodon is not any relic of deep time or movie studio fantasy. It survived till comparatively not too long ago geologically talking, current way more not too long ago than the dinosaurs which vanished about 66 million years in the past.

By distinction, the megalodon solely grew to become extinct some 4.5 to 2.5 million years in the past.

Today, it’s identified solely from its fossilised enamel, and some vertebrae. Frustratingly we aren’t fairly certain how, when or why the nice megalodon died out. It might have been due maybe to elevated competitors for prey, lowered oceanic productiveness, or cooling local weather affecting prey distribution and its nursery grounds.

Just a few individuals, often called cryptozoologists, consider that the nice shark by no means grew to become extinct. They assume that it continues to lurk within the deepest components of the ocean, a hardly ever glimpsed and poorly documented phantom killer of the abyss.

Either manner, there’s little doubt the megalodon was one ferocious predator.

Computer fashions reveal the power of its chunk to be a whopping 100,000 to 180,000 newtons, by far essentially the most highly effective chunk of any animal that has ever existed.

That is 14 instances better than the chunk power of the nice white shark, and 83 to 138 instances better than that of people.

By comparability, Tyrannosaurus rex might chunk with a power of 64,000 newtons, sufficient to crush a automotive, Jurassic Park-style. So a chunk of 100,000 to 180,000 newtons wouldn’t simply crush a automotive however dismember it – presumably atomise it.

An excellent, fossilised tooth of the megalodon is a feast for the attention, the thoughts and a surprise to the touch. The largest megalodon tooth ever discovered measures 18 cm from base to tip and weighs greater than 3lbs.

That’s longer than the enamel of any marine predator residing as we speak, besides maybe the most important sperm whales. It virtually actually got here from a person that exceeded 50ft in size.

Until very not too long ago, there was no settlement in regards to the ancestry of the megalodon and lots of incorrectly believed it to be associated to the nice white shark.

But the scale and form of their enamel establishes that the megalodon was really the final member of an extinct lineage of sharks often called the megatooth sharks. By far the most typical fossil finds of the megalodon are its enamel and virtually all are discovered as remoted specimens.

This is because of the truth that sharks frequently shed their enamel. Over their lives, they produce many 1000’s of enamel, though just some hundred are current within the mouth at anyone time. The steady substitute of worn and broken sharks’ enamel happens because of a kind of conveyor belt consisting of enamel at varied levels of growth within the mouth of each shark.

We have no idea precisely how lengthy the megalodon was, exactly how a lot it weighed or what form it was for the straightforward cause that cartilage, which contains a shark’s skeleton, doesn’t fossilise readily, and to this point no full physique fossil of the megalodon has ever been discovered.

In some components of the world, significantly in jap America, you’ll be able to come throughout fossilised megalodon enamel virtually wherever. Building websites, drains, quarries, seashores and roadsides have yielded spectacular finds.

Little surprise accumulating fossil shark enamel has develop into an all-consuming ardour for some. In the UK, megalodon enamel can often be discovered alongside the Naze cliffs on the Essex coast. In 2019, brother and sister Adam and Sophie Pollard made the news after stumbling throughout a big, closely weathered specimen that’s estimated to have come from an 60-ft-long large.

But why are we nonetheless so fascinated with these creatures? (They’ve even made it on to the large display courtesy of the 2018 Jason Statham thriller The Meg, and its current sequel, Meg 2: The Trench.)

Perhaps as a result of the megalodon roams the ocean unseen and unseeable, besides in our imaginations. And it usually surfaces in our consciousness after we are at relaxation or enjoying by the seaside.

The cause the nice shark holds such a chilling grip on us should be sought within the very lengthy historical past of the interplay of sharks with individuals. Is there something extra spine-chilling than the considered being eaten alive?Over the historical past of our human lineage, the prospect of being eaten alive has been a really actual risk.

And it has clearly left us with a morbid fascination – a hardwired want to watch carefully the gory assaults of predators, to study from them. So embedded certainly are these monsters in our minds that we compulsively resurrect them in tales, books and movies – even these just like the megalodon which were gone for thousands and thousands of years.

Over time, many conventional human communities have struck a stability between concern and respect for sharks, and in a few of the most ocean-going cultures of the world, each people and sharks thrived. Because sharks play important roles within the marine ecosystems, this live-and-let-live affiliation facilitates wholesome, secure meals chains, which carry actual advantages to people in addition to to the setting. But not too long ago our relationship with sharks has been a fraught one, with sensationalist reporting of shark assaults.

This was probably a driver for the success of the e-book and movie Jaws. Its large fame spawned a minimum of three film sequels, every of which depicted senseless, man-eating sharks mauling helpless swimmers.

J

aws was launched in 1975, and it instantly fuelled a rise within the killing of enormous sharks, primarily by fishers hoping to safe trophies similar to jaws, enamel and even whole our bodies. Yet sharks are accountable for solely about ten human deaths a yr, and in most of those circumstances the sufferer is bitten, however not consumed.

Humans, in distinction, kill about 100 million sharks a yr. That’s three sharks killed each second of day-after-day. Many of those sharks are eaten by us. Consequently, it’s estimated that the overall variety of sharks has halved over the previous 50 years. When scientist Louis Agassiz described the megalodon within the early nineteenth Century, it possessed, in his creativeness no less than, a few of the thriller of a very haunting monster. But as of late, courtesy of Jaws, its sequels and imitations, the megalodon is all too usually lowered to a senseless, ravening killer – a parody of a shark.

We can surmise, primarily based on residing sharks, that this best shark of all was a considering, feeling being, which bred, navigated and communicated in addition to killed. It virtually actually had its personal social construction, its personal consciousness of its place on the earth. And given the facility the megalodon continues to exert on our imaginations, it’s unlikely we’ll ever be capable to let the beast lie.

• Big Meg by Tim Flannery and Emma Flannery (Transworld, £16.99) is printed on Thursday. To pre-order, go to expressbookshop.com or name 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25