Like the blue shark, it also had extra-long pectoral fins to support its weight and size. megalodon likely had a much shorter nose, or rostrum, when compared with the great white, with a flatter, almost squashed jaw. Most reconstructions show megalodon looking like an enormous great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias. These teeth can tell us a lot, such as what these massive animals ate. In fact, the word megalodon simply means 'large tooth'. Megalodon teeth can reach 18 centimetres long. Without a complete megalodon skeleton to measure, these figures are based on tooth size.
It may have been comparable in length to today's biggest whale sharks, the largest of which has measured in at 18.8 metres.
But in reality, these animals were a little shorter than the 23-metre-long fictional monster it depicted.Įstimates suggest megalodon actually grew to between 15 and 18 metres in length, three times longer than the largest recorded great white shark. This giant shark is well-known for starring in the 2018 megalodon movie, The Meg. megalodon was not only the biggest shark in the world, but one of the largest fish ever to exist. For the next 13 million years the enormous shark dominated the oceans until becoming extinct just 3.6 million years ago.
The earliest megalodon fossils ( Otodus megalodon, previously known as Carcharodon or Carcharocles megalodon) date to 20 million years ago.
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