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Researchers from the University of Florida have announced the discovery of a 10 million year old Megalodon nursery area located in Panama. In a paper published in the research journal PLoS ONE they present the analysis of over 400 fossil Megalodon teeth collected from the shallow, marine Gatun Formation. These fossil Megalodon teeth in this collection are all surprisingly small, representing very young juveniles of the species.Carcharocles megalodon collection from the Gatun Formation.
Analysis of the Megalodon teeth determined the size did not relate to tooth position in the jaw or the size of the species during the time period. “Our study suggests the specimens represent mostly juveniles with lengths between 2 and 10.5 meters (6.5 to 34.5 feet),”, researcher Pimiento said. While several other areas have been suspected to represent Megalodon nurseries including the Bone Valley region of Florida and the Calvert Cliffs in Maryland due to the high concentrations of small teeth, this study maybe the most in depth analysis to date.
Baby Sharks in the Nursery
Although they were big babies, at 7 to 13 feet, young megalodons would have been vulnerable to predators, mainly other giant prehistoric sharks. Modern juvenile sharks find food and safety in shallow-water nursery areas, where bigger sharks that would prey on them can't swim. Scientists thought megalodon also used nursery areas, due to finding areas with juvenile shark fossil teeth nearby fossil marine mammals. A discovery in Panama gave scientists from the University of Florida confirmation of this belief.
The scientists studied 400 megalodon teeth collected from the Gatun Formation, an area where the Caribbean and Pacific met during the Miocene. The teeth were surprisingly small for the gigantic species. This suggested they were juveniles, but wasn't conclusive.
To determine for sure they were juveniles required thorough analysis. First, the scientists had to make sure they weren't small based on their position in the jaw. They did that by comparing the teeth from these fossils to those from fossils elsewhere of megalodon in different life stages. The scientists also conducted a review to make sure the megalodon weren't simply smaller during the time period the fossils came from.
Based on that analysis, they concluded the teeth were from juveniles and the concentration suggests a nursery area. Although other nursery areas were suggested previously, this was the first rigorous analysis to confirm an area as a megalodon nursery.
Grow Up Big and Strong
Megalodon was the biggest fish, and shark, to ever swim in the seas. Because of the limited fossils, scientists don't know for sure how big they got, but think they got to be more than 50 feet long, possibly closer to 60 feet. The large adults were bulky, too, weighing possibly weighing 50 tons or more. That's more than three times as long and twenty times as heavy as the Great White Shark.
Almost nowhere in the ocean was safe for other fish. Megalodon teeth have been found nearly everywhere, on every continent except Asia and Antarctica. They used those teeth to eat anything they wanted. Their preferred meal was probably whale; larger sea turtles may have served as snacks.
There are whalebone fossils with compression fractures; some scientists interpret them as having been caused by a massive strike from below, like a megalodon ramming its head into the whale's body. This would stun the victim and let megalodon grab and swallow it up. One fossil whale shows evidence of a healed compression fracture, making it a lucky—and rare—survivor of a megalodon attack.
- Natural history
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Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!Megalodon, (Carcharocles megalodon), member of an extinctspecies of megatooth shark (Otodontidae) that is considered to be the largest shark, as well as the largest fish, that ever lived. Fossils attributed to megalodon have been found dating from the early Miocene Epoch (which began 23.03 million years ago) to the end of the Pliocene Epoch (2.58 million years ago). The word megalodon, a compound of Greek root words, means “giant tooth.”
Natural history
Feed And Grow Fish Megalodon Locations
Distribution
Fossil remains of megalodon have been found in shallow tropical and temperate seas along the coastlines and continental shelf regions of all continents except Antarctica. During the early and middle parts of the Miocene Epoch (which lasted from 23 million to 5.3 million years ago), large seaways separated North America from South America and Europe and Asia from Africa and the Middle East, which likely facilitated movement from one ocean basin to another. Throughout the Miocene, megalodon distribution expanded from pockets located in the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas, in the Bay of Bengal, and along the coasts of California and southern Australia to encompasswaters off the coasts of northern Europe, South America, southern Africa, New Zealand, and east Asia. During the Pliocene Epoch, however, megalodon’s geographic range contracted significantly, and it was extinct by the end of the epoch.
Physical features
Megalodon was the largest fish ever known, a designation based on discoveries of hundreds of fossilteeth and a handful of vertebrae. Tooth-shape similarities between megalodon and modern great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) suggest that the two species may have been close relatives, and thus megalodon likely resembled that species in appearance—that is, as a bulky torpedo-shaped fish with a conical snout, large pectoral and dorsal fins, and a strong crescent-shaped tail. Estimates of body length are calculated using the statistical relationship between the size of megalodon’s fossil teeth and the teeth and body mass of modern white sharks and other living relatives. This data suggests that mature adult megalodons had a mean length of 10.2 metres (about 33.5 feet), the largest specimens measuring 17.9 metres (58.7 feet) long. Some scientists, however, contend that the largest forms may have measured up to 25 metres (82 feet) long. Studies estimate that adult body mass ranged from roughly 30 metric tons (1 metric ton = 1,000 kg; about 66,000 pounds) to more than 65 metric tons (about 143,000 pounds), adult females being larger (in both length and mass) than adult males.
Megalodon teeth are similar to those of modern white sharks in that they are triangular, serrated, and symmetrical. They differ from modern white shark teeth in that they are larger and thicker, the serrations on each tooth occur in regular intervals, and they possess a bourlette (a darker, chevron-shaped region near the tooth’s root). The largest extant megalodon tooth measures 17.8 cm (6.9 inches) in length, almost three times longer than those of modern white sharks (which are typically about 5.4 cm [2.1 inches] long). In addition, megalodon possessed a ferocious bite; its bite diameter was 3 metres (about 9.8 feet), several times larger than the bite diameter of averaged-sized white sharks.
Megalodon is thought to have managed its body temperature in a manner similar to that of modern white sharks, in that it was not exclusively cold-blooded like most fish. White sharks generate heat through the contraction of their swimming muscles, and this heat raises the temperature of parts of the shark’s body above that of the surrounding water, an adaptation called regional endothermy (which is a type of warm-bloodedness). This adaptation might have allowed megalodon to swim and hunt in colder waters, giving it exclusive access to prey in those locations.
Reproduction and territoriality
Megalodon is thought to have produced live young. It is not known, however, whether the species was ovoviviparous (in which eggs are retained within the mother until they hatch) or viviparous (in which fertilized embryos derive continuous nourishment from the mother). Estimates of body size using juvenile teeth suggest that newly birthed young may have been at least 2 metres (6.6 feet) in length.
Few details are known about megalodon courtship, but the species appears to have used nurseries for its young. A 2010 study identified a megalodon nursery along the Panamanian coast, which was characterized by the presence of juvenile teeth from various stages of life. Scientists posit that this shallow warm-water nursery provided young megalodons with access to a diverse array of smaller, more-abundant prey and enabled adults to better intercept attacks from other predatory shark species, such as hammerhead sharks. As the young sharks grew older, it is thought that they would make forays into deeper water to pursue larger animals.
Little is known about how individuals dispersed after they matured. Since megalodon is thought to have occupied an ecological niche similar to that of the white shark, some studies have assumed that megalodon likely ranged over areas comparable in size to the range of modern white sharks—about 1,000 square km (386 square miles).
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- There is no evidence of the megalodon's continued existence in the shallow seas that served as their nursery and hunting grounds nor any bite marks of the right size on the animals that would be their prey.
- A female megalodon may have been up to twice as large as a male megalodon.
- Fossils of megalodons have been found nearby every continent except for Antarctica.
- Megalodons and dinosaurs did not coexist; they were separated by more than 40 million years.