Scientists discovered that the gigantic shark was twice the size of any other shark that lives on meat.
The size of an extinct species, twice the length of A. London Double decker bus, newly calculated based on the size of today’s sharks.
The Megalodons can reach 15 meters, 50 feet, or about three times the height of a giraffe.
Previous estimates of 10 meters were made using his teeth, as the cartilage that made up his bones was not preserved as a fossil.
The massive body size of sharks that lived around the world from approximately 15 to 3.6 million years ago was found after making a more accurate equation based on the size that sharks can grow even today.
The scientists, published in the Textbook of Historical Biology, found that the megalodons were abnormally large compared to the body sizes of relatives of mackerel sharks, also called lamniformes.
Kensho Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago, said that while there are plenty of fossils of Autodus megalodon, the biology of the extinct species is not well understood because it is known only through its teeth.
The megalodon is thought to have been one of the largest and most powerful predators to ever live, but current estimates place the shark at only about 10 meters or 33 feet.
The researcher measured current sharks and was able to find a new estimate of shark body length from the fossil.
Professor Shimada said: “ The study shows that the O. megalodon shark that reached about 15 meters (50 feet) is really out of reach because all other sharks that do not feed on wood have a general size limit of seven meters (23 feet), And only a few were plankton-eating sharks, such as the whale shark and the basking shark, of equal or close size.
Lamina sharks have been the major carnivores in the ocean since the age of the dinosaurs, so it is reasonable to assert that they played an important role in shaping the marine ecosystems we know today.
The study also found, after the age of dinosaurs, that sharks grew larger than they had before.
It has been suggested that the warm blood haemorrhage led to gigantism in many species of sharks, but the new study suggests that they have a unique egg-eating behavior to nourish early-hatched embryos to large sizes within their mother being another possible cause. For repeated evolution to gigantism achieved by lamniform sharks.
Michael Griffiths, Professor of Environmental Sciences at William Patterson University, said: “ This is convincing evidence of the truly extraordinary size of megalodon.
This work represents a critical advance in our understanding of the evolution of this gigantic ocean.
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