![\"megalodon_tooth.jpg\"\/](\"https:\/\/thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com\/tCJPYLFX2Y8n0T85-LhQfhV4ybI=\/800x600\/filters:no_upscale()\/https:\/\/public-media.si-cdn.com\/filer\/7a\/13\/7a13072e-2ce6-40ab-8956-03a9243d3b8b\/megalodon_tooth.jpg\")
<\/span>Contrary to popular belief, great whites are\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0the long lost grandchildren<\/a>\u00a0of megs. But both occupy the throne at the top of the food chain\u2014just 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.<\/p>\n To keep in tip-top shape, megalodon likely\u00a0snacked on<\/a>\u00a0whales, dolphins, and seals, consuming\u00a0a literal ton of food<\/a>\u00a0each day\u2014a job made easy by\u00a0serrated six-inch teeth<\/a>\u00a0that,\u00a0en masse,\u00a0<\/em>have the\u00a0strongest bite force<\/a>\u00a0of any animal in history. Even if megalodon occasionally scavenged, they were likely active predators, as evidenced by the\u00a0ghastly grooves<\/a>\u00a0found in whale and dolphin bones scattered along the world\u2019s shores.<\/p>\n 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\u00a020,000<\/a>\u00a0or more into surrounding waters in the course of a lifetime. On the heels of each sloughing event are up to five new rows of teeth arranged like concentric roulette wheels, waiting to take their predecessors\u2019 place. According to\u00a0Hans Sues<\/a>, curator of vertebrate paleobiology at Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of Natural History, the meg teeth humans have dredged up number in the high thousands, and these fossils have been an important source of information on the beast.<\/p>\n Teeth are not just the most abundant meg relic; they\u2019re also some of the\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0meg relics that have survived to present day. Sharks are cartilaginous fish\u2014only a minority of their skeletons are calcified. They\u2019re basically big, fleshy ears with fins (and in this light, much less terrifying). Lightweight and springy, a\u00a0cartilage-based<\/a>\u00a0form is conducive to speedy swimming in pursuit of prey. But what\u2019s good for the meg hasn\u2019t been good for shark researchers: Cartilage simply isn\u2019t built to survive the ages, meaning the meg\u2019s left behind a pretty spotty fossil record.<\/p>\n Still, as one of the meg\u2019s only tangible legacies, teeth are worth their salt. \u201cTeeth are really important,\u201d says\u00a0Meghan Balk<\/a>, a researcher of paleobiology at the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of Natural History, who has studied megalodon. \u201cThey interact with the environment and [show] how the animal feeds. They\u2019re the best proxy we have [for these traits].\u201d<\/p>\n image: https:\/\/thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com\/9Cmebf7CDxfgs3g7LAqJYPxLWXg=\/1024\u00d7596\/https:\/\/public-media.si-cdn.com\/filer\/5c\/7a\/5c7a8af7-a0de-4726-8914-19b74db716f0\/great_white.jpg<\/p>\n Sadly, the same awe-inspiring attributes that defined megalodon existence may also have been what drove this top predator into extinction. The exact nature of its disappearance is still heavily debated, but it\u2019s likely a number of factors contributed to the meg\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n At such an indomitable size, there was little in the sea the meg couldn\u2019t nosh on. With no predators of its own, megalodon ruled a dictatorship, dominating\u00a0a cosmopolitan range of habitats<\/a>. All megalodon needed to flourish were abundant, blubbery prey and\u00a0coastal nurseries<\/a>\u00a0in which to breed. But\u00a0around 2.6 million years ago<\/a>, the last of them seem to have abandoned ship\u2014right around the time of the\u00a0most recent ice age<\/a>.<\/p>\n The timing\u2019s no coincidence: Global cooling did a number on the meg. It\u2019s possible megalodon struggled to stay warm as waters grew chilly. But according to\u00a0Catalina Pimiento<\/a>, a paleobiologist and megalodon expert at Swansea University and a fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, a tweak of the world\u2019s thermostat was likely of little concern to a hardy species that had conquered all but the iciest of the world\u2019s oceans. Like great white sharks, megalodon were probably actually pretty good at\u00a0maintaining a body temperature<\/a>\u00a0warmer than surrounding waters\u2014a trait rare amongst fish.<\/p>\n Rather, Pimiento says, as sea levels fell as the oceans iced up, the availability of prey habitats gradually\u00a0declined<\/a>, felling with them an estimated 55 percent of marine mammals\u2014mainstay meals<\/a>\u00a0for the megalodon. At the same time,\u00a0other top predators<\/a>\u00a0like killer whales and great whites began to swim the seas, further straining the meg\u2019s grasp on its dwindling resources. By the time temperatures began to climb, megalodon were long gone.<\/p>\n A common pet theory among meg fanatics is that these creatures still lurk in the unexplored depths of the world\u2019s oceans. There, they brood in silence, biding their time until they happen upon an unlucky submarine. (This is essentially the plot of\u00a0The Meg<\/em>.) Most shark experts scoff at this notion. As Skomal puts it, \u201cWe\u2019ve spent enough time fishing the world\u2019s oceans to have a sense of what\u2019s there and what\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To be fair, megalodon are pretty recently deceased\u2014relatively speaking, at least. The end of the dinosaurs dates back to\u00a0about 66 million years ago<\/a>, while these super sharks were splashing the seas almost 64 million years later. But timing is really the meg\u2019s only vote of confidence, and a weak one at that. A few million years is a long time to slink beneath the surface of the sea unnoticed, especially when you\u2019re as long as a standard bowling lane.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, to remain in permanent stealth mode in those treacherous depths, megalodon would have needed to undergo some pretty drastic changes. The bottom of the sea is dark and frigid. The creatures relegated to these habitats have been forced to come up with some pretty creative ways to weather the extremes\u2014and the further down you go, the\u00a0weirder<\/a>\u00a0things get.<\/p>\n According to Skomal, great white sharks\u2014our best living megalodon proxy\u2014can\u2019t tolerate the deep sea for more than a few hours at a time. Adding to this problem is the fact that the deep ocean is\u2014compared to the shallows where most prey frolic\u2014fairly sparsely populated<\/a>. Even swaddled in the coziest of down jackets, deep-sea megalodon would be in a constant calorie deficit.<\/p>\n Bretton Kent<\/a>, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies extinct sharks, adds that many of the ocean\u2019s most abyssal residents tend to be slow swimmers that gum on teeny prey\u2014a portrait incompatible with the meg\u2019s\u00a0modus operandi.\u00a0<\/em>If some version of this extinct shark exists in the sea\u2019s trenches, it wouldn\u2019t be much of a megalodon at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Shark experts are confident that we live in a meg-less world. But would it be possible to fill that meg-sized hole in our hearts and bring it back, a la\u00a0Jurassic Park?\u00a0<\/em>According to Ehret, \u201cit\u2019s just not gonna happen.\u201d Science is probably even further from cloning these bitey behemoths into existence than, say, a\u00a0Tyrannosaurus rex.<\/em><\/p>\n Theoretically, there are a couple ways this\u00a0could<\/em>\u00a0happen\u2014and both are dead ends. In the first, scientists could take a living descendant of an extinct creature and forage in its genome for ancient genes that have since gone dormant. Flipping these switches back on might allow the expression of some ancestral characteristics. It sounds crazy, but some researchers are working on\u00a0turning back the chicken clock<\/a>\u00a0in the hopes of hitting dino paydirt. But the last of the megatooth lineage died out long ago.<\/p>\n![\"Science](\"https:\/\/thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com\/9Cmebf7CDxfgs3g7LAqJYPxLWXg=\/1024x596\/https:\/\/public-media.si-cdn.com\/filer\/5c\/7a\/5c7a8af7-a0de-4726-8914-19b74db716f0\/great_white.jpg\")
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(Disclaimer: We do not have a Megalodon at the aquarium \ud83d\ude09 )<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/h2>\n\u00a0<\/h2>\nAs\u00a0The Meg<\/i>\u00a0hits theaters, dive into what we\u00a0really<\/i>\u00a0know about this chompy predator<\/h2>\n
As\u00a0The Meg<\/i>\u00a0hits theaters, dive into what we\u00a0really<\/i>\u00a0know about this chompy predator<\/h2>\n
By Katherine J. Wu<\/p>\n
Apparently, this dead horse still needs beating: The megalodon is\u00a0definitely\u00a0<\/em>extinct. But\u00a0The Meg,<\/em>\u00a0a summer sharkfest blockbuster set to premiere on August 10, might have you believe otherwise. The film is certainly not billed\u2014even facetiously\u2014as a documentary (take note, Discovery Channel), but if the\u00a0Jurassic Park\u00a0<\/em>franchise taught us anything, it\u2019s that the spark of the imagination needs only the slightest passing breeze to roar into a conflagration.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople ask me [if the megalodon is still alive] every day,\u201d says Dana Eret, a curator of paleobiology at the New Jersey State Museum. He adds, for good measure: \u201cThe answer is no.\u201d<\/p>\n The true story of the megalodon may not culminate in a jaw-dropping showdown of man versus shark\u2014but its legacy is no less cinematic.<\/p>\n In its heyday, the megalodon was a force to be reckoned with. These gargantuan chompers first arose\u00a0around 15.9 million years ago<\/a>\u00a0as one of the last strongholds of a now-extinct lineage of megatooth sharks. Running up to\u00a060 feet long<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0weighing over 50 tons<\/a>, the \u201cmeg\u201d was one of the largest apex predators to ever exist\u2014and certainly the most king-sized among sharks.\u00a0Greg Skomal<\/a>, a shark researcher and the recreational fisheries program manager at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, affectionately refers to them as \u201cgreat white sharks on steroids.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n image: https:\/\/thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com\/tCJPYLFX2Y8n0T85-LhQfhV4ybI=\/800\u00d7600\/filters:no_upscale()\/https:\/\/public-media.si-cdn.com\/filer\/7a\/13\/7a13072e-2ce6-40ab-8956-03a9243d3b8b\/megalodon_tooth.jpg<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/h2>\n