>we know next to nothing about the morphology of this extinct animal but it probably swam extremely fast, much faster than any living relative
Why are they like this?
>we know next to nothing about the morphology of this extinct animal but it probably swam extremely fast, much faster than any living relative
I believe we have found a vertebrae of megalodon, in addition we have found a juvenile's body specimen awhile ago. It's not a ton but its something.
There are also were a number of papers made on the subject of size and its body.
"In 2021, Victor J. Perez, Ronny M. Leder, and Teddy Badaut proposed a method of estimating total length of megalodon from the sum of the tooth crown widths. Using more complete megalodon dentitions, they reconstructed the dental formula and then made comparisons to living sharks. The researchers noted that the 2002 Shimada crown height equations produce wildly varying results for different teeth belonging to the same shark, casting doubt on some of the conclusions of previous studies using that method. Using the largest tooth available to the authors, GHC 6, with a crown width of 13.3 centimeters (5.2 in), they estimated a total length between 17.4 to 24.2 meters (57 to 79 ft) with a mean of 20.3 meters (67 ft).[10]"
Paper : https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2021/3284-estimating-lamniform-body-size
Making a megalodon: The evolving science behind estimating the size...
The giant prehistoric Carcharocles megalodon (or Otodus megalodon for some researchers) was the largest predatory shark to ever swim in Earth's seas. Scientific evidence points to megalodon having lived between 16 million and 2.6 million years ago, going extinct at the end of the Pliocene Epoch when the world's oceans were much colder than today's.
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-megalodon-evolving-science-size-largest.html
Here are some other papers
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328465547_Body_Length_Estimates_of_Fossil_Lamniform_Sharks_derived_from_Summed_Width_of_Associated_Dentitions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308891065_SIMPLIFYING_THE_METHODS_-_BODY_LENGTH_ESTIMATES_FOR_CARCHAROCLES_MEGALODON_USING_ASSOCIATED_TOOTH_SETS_AND_JAW_WIDTH_RELATED_DATA_FROM_GREAT_WHITE_SHARKS_AND_MAKOS
Concerning its size, using a larger dataset of great white sharks seems decrease the overall size estimates. Although, the estimates are still massive nonetheless.
>machinist blueprint for a prehistoric animal
But why though? Why such specific and unrelated tolerances?
it's cool and contrarian fags who don't like it are gay
i mean it's got mega in the name and it's a big ass shark, super fightin shark all the way man
Because it's badass
>no whale shark
it literally says in the picture on what basis the data is based, can you not read?
Livyatan could still catch it
Outcompeted, outlasted, preyed upon, dead genus, inferior predator.
They actually went extinct because their prey (megalodon) starved into extinction.
Holy cope
Both of them went extinct because of smaller sharks outcompeting during times of environmental change and decreases in marine wildlife diversity. They are both cuck species.
One was a chronospecies, one wasn't. They are not the same.
The chronospecies lineage ended with them being outcompeted to extinction.
based and truthpilled
both died (afaik anyway) because of a loss in diversity among whales due to climate change. specifically a loss of smaller whale species that they could predate upon. and I remember somewhere saying that it was specifically because only migratory whales survived because of the food density in the arctic, so the only food available eventually would leave for colder water then the meg could handle.
Objectively correct.
New size estimates for Megalodon put it not only as the largest toothed predator, but just as 2nd largest animal.
It also evolved before, and outlived Livyatan.
Only thing livy could do would gang up on meg, but it'd be like a group of dolphins taking on a great white.
How would it catch anything if it was slow as fuck?
Bigger = more muscles = faster
Nautical performance equations are pretty well known. They probably screwed up a variable, but the most efficient cruising speed is something you can figure out via math if you’ve got a good 3D model of a fish and it’s musculature.
Seems like it would be a huge waste of energy to move that fast while cruising
OP is complaining about paleontologists making an exctinct animal cooler without evidence, not making them gay with evidence though. how is this relevant?
A lot of paleontologists still just make shit up.
Based modern paleontologist calling kids retarded
Why aren't Blues, Whitetips, and Silkys the fastest? You would think open ocean sharks would need to move quickly all the time just to cover more area.
Energy conservation, probably.
Yeah that makes sense. I suppose they can ride currents out there too.
They can just cruise instead, thus the huge fucking fins on the whitetip
Because it'd be really cool if they did.