Today sword whales are at the top of the food chain, even white sharks have to fear and flee when the whales appear in their territory. At the time of megalodone from the Miiozene, the roles would have been distributed the other way around. The shark of superlative was probably undisputed at the head of the food chain, a position that is impressively strengthened by a new study by Jack Cooper by Swansea University and his team in »Science Advances«.
As in modern sharks, the skeleton of Otodus megalodon consisted of cartilages that fossilize very poorly. In 1860, however, a well-preserved section of a spinal column was found in Belgium, which could be assigned to a megalodon. The working group was able to reconstruct the entire spine of an adult animal, which should have been just over eleven meters long. Derived from the numerous fossil teeth of other megalodons, Cooper and Co also developed a 3-D model of the shark skull.
Overall, they came to a total length of 15.9 meters for their model shark, which weighed over 60 tons. Based on these dimensions, the scientists then calculated an energy requirement of 98,000 kilocalories for the animal, which was also able to swim faster than any other known shark. In any case, the stomach was interpreted for the necessary appetite, according to the working group: it took around 10,000 liters, so that even a adult sword whale would have fit into it. In theory, a megalodon could have devoured the black and white small whale in only five bites, according to the calculation.
This food could have been enough for him for almost two months before he had to eat again. In fact, the megalodons hunted the small whales of that time, as fossils testify. However, their size did not save the species from extinction: climate fluctuations in the Miocene and the advent of more flexible shark species ultimately ensured its end.
