We could also see megalodons tracking fishing boats and stealing the fish they catch, just like some killer whales do. With ocean temperatures warming up again, megalodons would be thriving and reproducing, resulting in even more of these giant mammals in the water. That would spell trouble for maritime shipping operations, cruise ships, and even beachgoers.
Megalodons gave birth in warm, shallow waters, so a nice recreational beach swim could become very dangerous for us. What would our planet look like if no animals ever went extinct? Scroll down for the quiz! There is an invisible force protecting us, keeping our atmosphere in place. Without it, life on Earth would be over very quickly. Take a deep breath.
We take 23, breaths a day; trying to get oxygen to our brain and cells. Oxygen is essential to our survival. Millions of years ago, the megalodon shark was one of the scariest creatures to ever lurk in our seas. And even before that, the mosasaurs reigned supreme, terrorizing In the time it would take you to order an extra larger everything pizza and have it delivered to your front door you could theoretically jump through that tunnel This is the world million years ago. No cell phones, electricity or even other humans.
Would you be able to survive in this new world? Could you get yourself a pet All over the world, people are treating bodies of water like they are giant garbage dumps.
But both occupy the throne at the top of the food chain—just at very different points in history. Because of this, many theories on megalodon physiology and behavior are based on great whites; however, scientists now know these two species independently developed similarities without much of a genetic connection.
To keep in tip-top shape, megalodon likely snacked on whales, dolphins, and seals, consuming a literal ton of food each day—a job made easy by serrated six-inch teeth that, en masse, have the strongest bite force of any animal in history. Megalodon teeth have informed much of what scientists know of the creature, partially out of sheer abundance. Unlike humans, sharks cycle through teeth continuously, shedding 20, or more into surrounding waters in the course of a lifetime.
Sharks are cartilaginous fish—only a minority of their skeletons are calcified. Lightweight and springy, a cartilage-based form is conducive to speedy swimming in pursuit of prey.
Sadly, the same awe-inspiring attributes that defined megalodon existence may also have been what drove this top predator into extinction. With no predators of its own, megalodon ruled a dictatorship, dominating a cosmopolitan range of habitats. All megalodon needed to flourish were abundant, blubbery prey and coastal nurseries in which to breed. But around 2. Like great white sharks, megalodon were probably actually pretty good at maintaining a body temperature warmer than surrounding waters—a trait rare amongst fish.
Rather, Pimiento says, as sea levels fell as the oceans iced up, the availability of prey habitats gradually declined , felling with them an estimated 55 percent of marine mammals— mainstay meals for the megalodon.
By the time temperatures began to climb, megalodon were long gone. There, they brood in silence, biding their time until they happen upon an unlucky submarine.
This is essentially the plot of The Meg. Most shark experts scoff at this notion. As time goes on, there is a clear fossil record of slight changes in the shark teeth. The cusps gradually become smaller and dissapear. Cutting edges become serrated, the crown gets broader, and the overall size of the teeth increases over time. Paleontologists assign each change of the megatooth shark into new species, and even genera, until the high mark is reached; Otodus Carcharocles megalodon.
Yes, there is debate over exact species names, genera names, and when one morphological form is pronounced enough to be considered a new species.
But everyone does agree, the fossil record is very clear and complete when it comes to the evolutionary history of megalodon. The extinction of megalodon also is clear in the fossil record.
Fossils of megalodon are plentiful, but at the mid-end Pliocene, they vanish. This doesn't mean there are not marine Pleistocene formations. There are, and they are plentiful.
They contain an array of marine fauna, including many surviving sharks and surviving whales. They just don't contain megalodon fossils anymore. There are no transitional fossils showing a gradual change of megalodon into something else, there simply are no fossils of megalodon or similar creatures.
If megalodon changed into something else, there would be a clear record in these well studied Pleistocene formations. There is no record, they completely vanish. The only valid conclusion is megalodon became extinct. This shows the evolution of the megalodon, from a small Cretaceous shark to the apex predator of the Pliocene. After the Pliocene, megalodon fossils are no longer present. This is probably the most commonly used argument.
That's because the statement is partially true. The oceans are vast and a large predator can evade detection. Unfortunately, the statement contains a common logical fallacy called the " Argument from Ignorance ". This common logical fallacy states since we don't know or can never prove whether a claim is true, it must be false. Scientists are always finding new deep sea creatures. However, the evidence for megalodon is not there. There could be space aliens under the sea, there could be unicorns, dragons, Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa all living in some underwater castle yet to be discovered.
However, the evidence for these are also not there. Lets look at the scientific evidence. Megalodon is just not any oceanic creature. It was THE top apex predator of the oceans. The evidence is not there for a large undetected apex predator ruling the oceans. I'm sure there are plenty of other undetected animals, including new species of sharks roaming the oceans, but none of them are going to be a top apex predator like the megalodon.
Unlike many sharks, Megalodon was a warm water animal. Fossils are only found in ancient warm water oceans and seas, not near the poles. They used nursing grounds that were near shore, the East Atlantic Coastal Plain and Florida were two such nursing grounds.
Juveniles would live and grow there. They ate cetacea whales , and lots of them. They were common. Megalodon fossils are found nearly globally in all warm and temperate waters of the Miocene and Pliocene. These were not rare animals and their fossils are relatively abundant. These top apex predators would be spotted eating whales on whale watching tours, they would be spotted by recreational boaters in the nearshore coastlines. There would be a whole "megalodon watching" and "megalodon diving" tourist industry centered around them.
Carcasses would be washing ashore from time to time like the basking sharks. They would not be hiding in the deep, cold, dark depths of the sea. These animals were in no way designed for that. A major event occurred toward the end of the Pliocene which caused a mass extinction of large marine animals. Factors include global cooling and changing ocean currents due to the closing of central america.
This completely shut down the tropical currents connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and completely changed temperatures, currents, and nutrient flow of the Oceans. Since megalodons were warm water animals, this event stopped megalodons from swiming between oceans.
Megalodon populations became isolated in "islands of warm water". Ice Age cycles were triggered during the cooling in the Pliocene. Ice sheets caused water to become locked up at the poles, causing a dramatic drop in global sea levels. Nearshore megalodon nursing areas were lost. All of these events caused a major disruption in marine fauna, especially megafauna, like whales and sharks. Whale diversity megalodons main food source drasitcally shrank.
Many whale genera became extinct, including the cetotherids that were a main food source. The few whales that survived adapted and started migrating into cooler, more nutrient rich waters where megalodon could not go. Other whales adapted into large killing apex predators that hunted in pods, such as the Orcas. Juvenile megalodons would have made for tasty Orca snacks.
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