Megalodon Question

[E.D.G.E. (PainterRex)]

So...seeing as most of the populace gets in a tizzy every time science finds that an animal may have looked differently or acted differently than previously thought, as if they have choice , what would happen when/if it is found that Megalodon was not just a jumbo great white? I am pretty sure that it would not look like a jumbo great white anyway, but imagine the dogmatic outrage that would come of news like that! This would likely be the same thing with All theropod dinosaurs and feathers, JP Tyrannosaurus vs. Collecta's Tyrannosaurus, Torosaurus vs. Triceratops, etc. What are your thoughts?

[Flaffy]

True, true. Imagine the people saying "Science makes Megalodon LAME, first they put feathers on dinosaurs, NOW THIS?! Science is ruining my childhood!!!" 

[Takama]

Personally  I think megalodon is the most overated prehistoric sea animal ever.

[Paleogene Pals]

People might get upset, like they do with feathered theropods. But, it doesn't matter, science isn't a democracy. Besides, the more accurate reconstruction might just be more bizarre than a jumbo great white. Take the updated reconstruction of Spinosaurus for example.

[E.D.G.E. (PainterRex)]

People might get upset, like they do with feathered theropods. But, it doesn't matter, science isn't a democracy. Besides, the more accurate reconstruction might just be more bizarre than a jumbo great white. Take the updated reconstruction of Spinosaurus for example.

I remember hearing/reading about how Megalodon may have looked more like an angel shark, or something with the flanges-type seaweed shaped fleshy bits hanging off of it. But you know, we may never know, since only the teeth have preserved.

[stoneage]

   Actually some vertebrae has also been found. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon#/media/File:Megalodon_skeleton.jpg

[Yutyrannus]

I think Cretolamna is the best reference we have at the moment for what C. megalodon would have looked like.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Cretolamna.jpg

[spinosaurus1]

i highly doubt that megalodon was some giant angle shark. it shows way too much similar characteristics with lamniformes and little to none with squatinoformes from its known remains.

although i do think that megalodon can be a little overrated greatly due to public interpretations, there is no argue from direct evidence that this was a predator of some of the largest organisms that lived on earth. it is a respectable animal that would have all the power and capability to down full grown whales, thus i think some of its publicity can be justified.

[stargatedalek]

although i do think that megalodon can be a little overrated greatly due to public interpretations, there is no argue from direct evidence that this was a predator of some of the largest organisms that lived on earth. it is a respectable animal that would have all the power and capability to down full grown whales, thus i think some of its publicity can be justified.

The largest whale confirmed to have actually been attacked and not scavenged was only about 23 feet long. This was found via bone trauma iirc, so it's not just that megalodon had a low failure rate and this was a healed escapee, but that it likely didn't kill the larger whales its teeth were found in.

I do think that mackerel sharks are the most likely interpretation for megalodon, but that a great white is specifically always used really grinds my nerves. This was a large animal that fed mostly on prey much smaller than itself (it's prey consisted mostly of pinnipeds and small coastal cetaceans, again iirc). I highly doubt it would have the same open water camouflage that white sharks do. Specifically its teeth resemble mako sharks more than white sharks (if you were to scale them down).

All that said, I'm rather fond of the speculative depiction of a bottom dwelling giant ambush megalodon. If not the most likely interpretation it at the very least doesn't clash with any of the evidence we have for megalodon (including diet).

[Gwangi]

although i do think that megalodon can be a little overrated greatly due to public interpretations, there is no argue from direct evidence that this was a predator of some of the largest organisms that lived on earth. it is a respectable animal that would have all the power and capability to down full grown whales, thus i think some of its publicity can be justified.

The largest whale confirmed to have actually been attacked and not scavenged was only about 23 feet long. This was found via bone trauma iirc, so it's not just that megalodon had a low failure rate and this was a healed escapee, but that it likely didn't kill the larger whales its teeth were found in.

I do think that mackerel sharks are the most likely interpretation for megalodon, but that a great white is specifically always used really grinds my nerves. This was a large animal that fed mostly on prey much smaller than itself (it's prey consisted mostly of pinnipeds and small coastal cetaceans, again iirc). I highly doubt it would have the same open water camouflage that white sharks do. Specifically its teeth resemble mako sharks more than white sharks (if you were to scale them down).

All that said, I'm rather fond of the speculative depiction of a bottom dwelling giant ambush megalodon. If not the most likely interpretation it at the very least doesn't clash with any of the evidence we have for megalodon (including diet).

You basically described a white shark just then.  White sharks generally hang out near the coast, feeding on pinnipeds.

[brandem]

I actually wrote a really long post about megalodon bodyshape a while back,
http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=1663.0

Yeah, that was fun.

[stargatedalek]

although i do think that megalodon can be a little overrated greatly due to public interpretations, there is no argue from direct evidence that this was a predator of some of the largest organisms that lived on earth. it is a respectable animal that would have all the power and capability to down full grown whales, thus i think some of its publicity can be justified.

The largest whale confirmed to have actually been attacked and not scavenged was only about 23 feet long. This was found via bone trauma iirc, so it's not just that megalodon had a low failure rate and this was a healed escapee, but that it likely didn't kill the larger whales its teeth were found in.

I do think that mackerel sharks are the most likely interpretation for megalodon, but that a great white is specifically always used really grinds my nerves. This was a large animal that fed mostly on prey much smaller than itself (it's prey consisted mostly of pinnipeds and small coastal cetaceans, again iirc). I highly doubt it would have the same open water camouflage that white sharks do. Specifically its teeth resemble mako sharks more than white sharks (if you were to scale them down).

All that said, I'm rather fond of the speculative depiction of a bottom dwelling giant ambush megalodon. If not the most likely interpretation it at the very least doesn't clash with any of the evidence we have for megalodon (including diet).

You basically described a white shark just then.  White sharks generally hang out near the coast, feeding on pinnipeds.

I'm aware, but one needs to consider the relative size of the prey compared to the shark as opposed to what the prey was. A large seal/sea lion is a lot larger compared to a white shark than it is to a megalodon. I would expect fish eating sharks like porbeagles to be the best comparison (at least behaviorally)

The study a while ago concluding Titanoboa as piscivorous because its jaws opened similarly to sea snakes was flawed for this very reason. Size relative to food is as important if not more so than what kind of food it is.

[alexeratops]

Thanks to the Internet, I have come to generally dislike Megalodon because of all of its idiot fans. I saw a size chart including a few dinosaurs and some whales. It went over all of the largest animals known to science, and made a point to say that the blue whale was the largest (which is up to debate, but that's besides the point). Someone in the comments said, "what about megalodon it was 400 feet long". The internet worships Megalodon like a flipping god, saying it could defeat anything in its path. I have even met people who claimed to love Megalodon but legitimately didn't know it was a shark.
It's just that all of the uneducated people make me cringe every time I see people praising Megalodon.

[CityRaptor]

400 feet? That is insane. Someone claiming that clearly belongs into an Asylum. ( See what I did there?)

So if C. megalodon is worshipped as a god, does that make Steven Allen the high priest?

[Komodo]

C. megalodon was a lamniform and from the shape of its vertebra and the configuration of its teeth (complete sets are known), it is still known, as a consensus, the closest image you can get from it is a modified gigantic white shark, even if the genus is not the same.

Gottfried et al. 1996 provided the best reconstruction of the animal, the mounted skeletal structure at the Calvert Marine Museum is probably one of the best restoration of the animal in the world. A soon to be published book will include a chapter about the biology of these giants sharks with a revised reconstruction of it.

Even without complete skeleton, it's almost certain it was a giant shark with a robust fusiform body.

Is megalodon overrated? I don't think so. Even the scientific papers about it often verge on the spectacular because...well the animal was spectacular. A 50 metric tons plus great white-like animal  with a bite more destructive than a Tyrannosaurus is of course spectacular in its own right. Except for some stem physeteroids, no other apex macropredator in the history is known to approach its size league and a cosmopolitan apex predator surviving about 20 million years and having a direct impact on the evolution of modern whales is quite a feat. Not sure I'd call it overrated.

Stargatedalek, the maximum prey size of megalodon is unknown, there are very numerous whale bones with deep gashes found but most are under-documented. A very large balaenoptrid from the Pliocene of California, studied by Lawrence Barnes, is suspected to have been attacked by the shark. Purdy (1996) reports several cases of "large balaenopterids and sperm whales" bones with hints of giant sharks scavenging/predation. Kallal et al. described the case of a very large balaenopterid having survived an attack by a potential juvenile megalodon about half its size : http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/06/healed-bone-gives-away-prehistoric-shark-bite/

The biggest confirmed case of a whale preyed by the shark is a 9 meters cetotherid discovered by Alton Dooley and examined by Brett Kent. It appears the whale was killed by a direct attack on the torso; the hypothesis from Kent being that this species attempted to kill its preys the faster possible by targetting the vital organs, on contrary to the white shark which rather massive exsanguination for its kills.

All hype excluded, this species is not famous for zero reason. And it's not the first prehistoric critter to be over-hyed in popular medias... Remember the magical blue whale-sized pliosaur...

[stargatedalek]

Don't forget Shonisaurus and Shastasaurus, the larger species dwarfed megalodon by a matter of tens of feet. Despite this I wouldn't call them anything but obscure. Perhaps it's because their Triassic animals (which [sans Ghost Ranch] don't get much recognition period), but I doubt that's it. Think of the most famous marine and semi-aquatic animals, the vast majority of ones I'd expect someone with no interest in extinct life to be aware of are all sharks. Even (for all comparative purposes) rather unimpressive creatures like Hybodus or Stethacanthus are more famous than contemporary creatures that (again, for all comparative purposes) are more impressive or closer to the kind of extinct animals that the media would tend to gravitate towards if they weren't living near sharks.

While megalodon was certainly an impressive animal, I don't think it can be understated how overstated it is in the general media. Megalodon is the "Tyrannosaurus of the sea" in every possible sense. I see insane estimates of 80-90 feet thrown about as if it was written in stone. Credible estimates place megalodon between 40 and 60 feet in length. This is still a top predator that at conservative estimates is the size of a whale shark, not a feat to be understated. Perhaps because whale sharks and basking sharks are famous for their gentle nature the "layman fan following" (and some very pathetic Discovery Channel executives) feel like they need to try to separate megalodon from the giant sharks that still live, and so they blow it out of proportion even further to separate it in their minds.

I'm well aware there are many potential cases of megalodon predating large whales, but as you said there is no 100% consensus on whether this was hunting or scavenging, as regardless the animals did not survive to display healing signs. It could be that megalodon was specialized in tearing its potential food into smaller retrievable pieces to avoid competition for large kills with smaller sharks and toothed whales. We just don't know.

[Komodo]

Dwarfed by a matters of tens of feet? S. populari specimens all tops at 15m and while S. sikanniensis is known to have reached 21m, the larger size estimate for C. megalodon in the modern scientific literature is at 18-20m (Gottfried 1996, Compagno 2001, Wroe 2008, Pimiento 2016). Moreover, S. sikanniensis appears to have had a very shallow body (no more than 2m deep at the thickest) while C. megalodon is expected to have had a particularly robust body plan, bulkier than a white shark (Gottfried 1996) and a body depth up to 1/4 its forke length (Kent unpublished yet data).

In other terms, a 18m megalodon would have a girth twice larger than a 21 m S. sikanniensis. Not what I call being dwarfed.

Plus, with very small teeth (S. populari) or no teeth at all (S. sikanniensis), I m not sure they qualify as apex macropredators.

The largest confirmed whale shark was a 12.65m, 21 tonnes specimen; C. megalodon is widely considered as the largest elasmobranch in records.

Every famous extinct critters have been subject to absurd statements, megalodon is not specific at that.

The cases of cetaceans bones with deep bite marks that mostly only match C. megalodon are just too numerous (thousands) to exclude predation or scavenging.

I have a poster of a project analyzing megalodon potential prey size. The largest in their data is the 40 tons Pliocene Eubalaena. If valid, such a large prey item is unprecedented for a solitary apex predator.

What I rather observe is that when some exaggerates and overhypes a creatures, others tend to consequently understate and undermine it. While the only thing to do to have an objective point of view is to watch at the scientific data, not relying on popular medias, bad websites or personnal interpretations.

[stargatedalek]

I suppose I did dearly overstate the size difference, my apologies. I was trying using them as a general example of how many truly unique and unusual animals are overlooked because there's always the option to "just use a shark instead", knowing they will get just as many if not more viewers.

Megalodon is a truly impressive animal, but if Discovery Channel had made a "documentary" pretending to have discovered living Pliosaurus no one would have thought it was truth. If anything it may have even been seen as endearing. In the layman eyes megalodon is not merely another prehistoric animal, it's like a sasquatch. This is why I think megalodon is overrated, no matter what it was like. It could have had laser eyes and fought dinosaurs and if people thought it was still living today I'd call it overrated. I actually rather like megalodon, but just because I like something doesn't mean I won't call it overrated.

There are unconfirmed reports of whale sharks reaching 18 meters. And while unconfirmed accounts are of course to be taken with salt, these claims are well within the realm of plausibility.* This places the more conservative estimates of megalodon (12-18 meters) well within what is plausible of whale sharks. Even excluding these potential giants the most conservative placements put megalodon on par with the largest confirmed whale sharks.

* https://peerj.com/articles/715/

I agree megalodon most likely hunted whales. That being said in my mind numbers alone aren't enough to completely rule out an opportunistic scavenger that also hunted smaller and weaker animals. It's not like Tyrannosaurus where there was a shortage of predators to scavenge from, and if megalodon was primarily a scavenger that could explain why it went extinct alongside the raptorial sperm whales, and also fits with its method of tearing their food into smaller pieces.

Again, not saying this is more likely, just presenting an alternate hypothesis to exemplify how little we truly know for certain.

[Komodo]

Megalodon as an all-time famous extinct critter is understandable as it is a shark of monstrous proportions :

"Perhaps of all the monsters, the giant shark is the most enduring. It incorporates virtually every element that we require of our mythological sea beasts: great size, mysterious habits, verified anthropophagous inclinations, and a history that goes back to the beginnings of recorded time. More than Leviathan, more than the sea serpent, more than the Kraken, Megalodon may be the ultimate monster."

- Richard Ellis, Monsters of the Sea

I don't say it is a good thing or a bad thing, it simply is. A toothless, beaked giant ichtyhosaur can't have the same impact on the human psyche.

I really cannot care less about the Discovery mockumentary and the controverse about it was enoughly strong to forget it.

I think you rather think it's too much famous, I don't think "overrated" is the right term for what you mean.

Yup, I know these whale sharks reports but as you say, they are unconfirmed. Moreover, the body mass described in these cases (a 17m specimen said to be 35 tonnes) are well below what is predicted for C. megalodon. The paper by McClain et al. 2015 is interesting but filled with strong issues or simplifications. I rather incline to say that basking and whale sharks are in the size range of megalodon, but if the upper estimates of megalodon are true, I doubt the modern whale shark grows that large.

Being involved in an on-going project investigating the megalodon size, I'm very confident the most conservative sizes about 12-15m as max size are substantial underestimates, for several reasons due to the decoupled scaling between the white shark and meg dentition. The upper estimates suggested by Gottfried might be actually solid...

Megalodon is understood to have had a massive influence of the mysticete Neogene radiation(Nyberg 2006), I don't think being an opportunistic scavenger would fit such an impact. However, an unpublished yet work suggests a change of diet between neonates, juveniles, adults and large adults, the large adults, less agile being more opportunistic...

It's true the large raptorial sperm whales lived longer than we thought but for now it still appears that Carcharocles went extinct later, in the absence of indication of large killer sperm whales in later Pliocene deposits.

[fason]

sorry i am no megalodon or shark expert (neither flight expert ,i stick to the ground )  but didnt megalodon have some competition from large whales like livyatan  and other small whales ? why didnt they get blown out of water like megalodon did?