The Biggest Fossil Shark Ever Gets Even Bigger!
While scientists can’t seem to agree on its genus, they do agree on one thing: the megalodon was big! Just how big? Traditionally, they’ve said “as long as a school bus.” Well, that, too, has now changed.
Megalodon has been immortalized in photos of jaws that paleontologists reconstructed based on tooth size as compared to teeth of contemporary sharks. An iconic photo shows six scientists from the American Museum of Natural History sitting for a group portrait inside the reconstructed jaws of this ancient superpredator. Paleontologists have now determined the size of that jaw was a tad bit exaggerated.
e problem? Sharks have skeletons of so cartilage, and cartilage does not fossilize well. us, they’ve never found a complete skeleton of megalodon. All they’ve been able to go by are hard enamel teeth and the occasional vertebra. Writing in the journal Science Advances, a team lead by Jack A. Cooper (Swansea University, UK), used megalodon teeth and vertebrae along with wholebody scans of modern great white sharks to do a 3D digital reconstruction of this mighty fossil beast.
eir conclusion? Megalodon was even longer than a school bus, clocking in at over 50 feet. (For those craving details, the average school bus is 20 to 45 feet.) And while it’s unlikely its jaws could have held six paleontologists, still, those jaws likely stretched six feet when opened wide!