Part I: About C. megalodon
“This was a real monster, not a fictitious creature born in the mind of some Hollywood producer. Its teeth were not just a tool to secure a meal, but a true work of art – then and now. It is an honor to pay tribute to such a magnificent creature, as well as some of the others that represent the fossil record…” M. Renz
Carcharodon megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon) is a prehistoric predatory fish that lived during the Cenozoic era circa 25 million years ago.
To give this date some scale T. rex lived about 67 million years ago, Great Whites are thought to have appeared in the oceans about 16 million years ago and Homo sapiens only began walking the earth about 200,000 years ago.
It is estimated by archeologists that C. megalodon went extinct about 1.5 million years ago due to some unknown event most likely related to global cooling and the subsequent reduction in both nursery areas and suitable prey. The exact cause for the extinction of C. megalodon will probably never be known but the evidence of C. megalodon’s existence can be found if one knows where to look.
The most prominent piece of evidence for the existence of C. megalodon is the fossilized teeth which are collected everywhere from the arid deserts of Peru to 100 feet under the ocean. There have been very limited numbers of vertebrae collected from various parts of the world including Europe but these finds are exceedingly rare and most Meg fossils are teeth. This fact is caused by the cartilaginous nature of C. megalodon’s “bones” which tend to dissolve over time unless they are encased in something like clay. The teeth however are denser and stronger which in turns results in their fossilization rather than disintegration.
The teeth themselves range in size from 1 inch to over 6 inches and give us a relatively limited view into the biology of C. megalodon.
Because of the shape of the teeth many scientists place C. Megalodon in the same familial branch as the Great White (Carcharodon carcharias). The family for the Carcharodon genus is Lamnidae, which are characterized by a torpedo shaped body, pointed snouts, heavy bodies and large teeth. Extant sharks included in the family (aside from the Great White) are the Mako (Shortfin and Longfin) and Porbeagle.
However the above conclusion has drawn some criticism from other paleontologists who believe that tooth similarities between the Great White and Meg are just that and indicate there is strong evidence that the classification should be Carcharocles megalodon instead of Carcharodon megalodon. This argument centers on differences in divergent and convergent evolutionary theories for the C. megalodon wherein the first group believes that one evolved from the other (divergent) and the second believes that they evolved independently but with similar traits (convergent).
If the paleontologists advocating the Carcharocles genus were to be believed this would mean that C. megalodon came from a somewhat different evolutionary branch than the Great White and that using the Great White’s biology to draw conclusions about C. megalodon would be inherently incorrect.
In the end I find this debate to be entirely academic and somewhat inconsequential for my purposes. Without finding a Meg somewhere in the ocean to show me different I will accept that C. megalodon and C. carcharias are family members with similar morphology (size being the main difference). A very cursory look at sharks as a whole renders the average predatory sharks somewhat similar in appearance and there is no reason to believe that C. megalodon would have looked much different than the Great White based on the tooth hypothesis.
So the question that is begging to be asked is how big really was C. megalodon? An honest answer would be (based on my research) no one really knows.
Estimates for the size of C. megalodon have ranged everywhere from 40 to over 90 feet long with weights ranging between 45 and 115 short tons. While there are many methods with which to estimate the size of the extinct shark the most accurate methods that I have come across (as accepted by scholars) has been proposed by Dr. Clifford Jeremiah. Dr. Jeremiah has asserted that the diameter of the root of the tooth can be used to ascertain the size of the shark. Essentially for every centimeter of diameter on the root base you can assume 4.5 feet of length to the shark.
So as an example if have a tooth where the base is 10 centimeters the shark would have been 45 feet long. Based on Dr. Jeremiah’s estimates a full-grown C. megalodon would have measured around 60 feet in length based on the largest teeth that he has seen to date.
C. megalodon was the largest predatory fish and one of the largest predators to ever live on this earth. Its splendor is something that both intrigues and terrifies me at the same time.I look forward to coming across the remnants of its existence in the waters off of North Carolina.
Coming Next Part II - Diving for the Hunter's Tooth
