"At a length of 50 feet or more, it was probably the terrifying predator that has ever lived . . . Given the fearsome reputation of the comparatively small white shark, we are fortunate that Megalodon is extinct."

- Richard Ellis & Dr. John McCosker from 'Great White Shark' - 1991

 

Photo by Ron Taylor

 

SO WHAT DOES A GIANT SHARK EAT?

Anything it wants to!!! Sorry, couldn't resist.

Just as giant Megalodon teeth have been found, so have the remains of creatures that might have made tasty meals for the shark - large whales. Most of the big whales swimming the seas today existed at the same time as Megalodon and bones from these whales have been found with bite marks from large serrated teeth such as those possessed by a certain 50-foot shark we're discussing here. In addition, Megalodon fossils are found in the same areas known to have been frequented by the large whales. This indicates a link between the predator and its prey.

THE EVOLUTIONARY CURTAIN FALLS ON C. MEGALODON

Luckily for us wee humans who only average about 1 meter if we drink our milk every day, the 17-meter C. megalodon is thought to have been extinct since the end of the Pliocene Epoch. This means, for those of you like me who wouldn't know the difference between the Pliocene Epoch and a New York Minute, that C. megalodon died out a couple of million years ago, give or take a couple of hundred centuries or so. John Clay Bruner states in an article widely found on the Internet (see my Links section) that it is documented that young GWs have a limited tolerance for seawater temperature, kind of a Goldilocks preference for water that is 'not too hot and not too cold'. This would restrict where in the ocean we would find these animals. He goes on to speculate that it is possible that the great whales that Megalodon preyed upon migrated to cooler waters where the sharks could not follow.

IS MEGALODON REALLY EXTINCT?

If you do a search on Altavista for Megalodon and pick a link at random, you're going to come across one of two types of sites - a site selling Megalodon teeth or a site that has articles about whether or not the great fish still lurks in the deep.

The logic goes like this. Sperm whales are the largest predators ever produced by nature, assuming that Megalodon "only" grew to 50 feet or so. They've got enough food to survive down in the ocean depths. Who is to say that there isn't enough food to keep a population of super sharks in healthy condition? In other words, there doesn't seem to be a good reason for Megalodon to have died out.

Another fish often cited when discussing the extinction of Megalodon is the coelacanth. In  December of 1938, the zoological discovery of the century was made when a fishing boat caught a strange fish off the coast of Madagascar . Marjorie Courtenay Latimer, curator of a local museum, was visiting the fish market where she saw and purchased the strange animal. She made a sketch of the animal and sent it to Dr. J. L. B. Smith, an expert on fishes. On seeing the sketch, Dr. Smith is believed to have said, "I would not have been more surprised if I had seen a dinosaur walking down the street!" The species was named by Smith as Latimeria, after the curator who spotted it.

The coelacanth was thought to be extinct until  Marjorie Courtenay Latimer (left) submitted a sketch of a fish (middle) she purchased at a local market. Today, the fish lives in isolated colonies and is considered endangered.

Now, the existence of the coelacanth is certainly not evidence towards a big Megalodon happily swimming along somewhere in the briny blue but it does offer a living  example of another fish thought to be long gone from the face of the Earth.

So if you feel a burning need to make the zoological discovery of the next century, grab a boat, some bait, and a really big fishing pole - C. megalodon may be waiting for you!

The Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland is home to this excellent restoration of the skeleton of a Megalodon. Pretty cool, huh?