"If I had a nickel for every prehistoric enormous aquatic predator that had its body restoration constantly changed due to a lack of a definitive skeleton, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice."
Gotta love how both still manage to generate a lot of controversity. For Megalodon we don't have many remains apart from the teeth and vertebrae, and for Spinosaurus we don't actually know if the remains we have, are actually Spinosaurus. Given that the holotype was destroyed in WWII. These already included remains of maybe a different species.😅 At least for the new Moroccan Spinosaurid material we know quite well how it looked. Except for some important detail.
@@Timbo6669 Well I have seen one displayed at the Aathal private collection. But I think it is owned by someone else. That one is definitely a composite and I am unsure if the jaw parts are real or not.
@@Paralititannormally only the teeth are fossilised for sharks (since most of their skeleton is cartilage). There is not a single full specimen of a megalodon, therefore ALL complete fossil specimens are composites. The only real Megalodon fossils in existence are teeth and vertebrae, everything else are models based on the anatomy of the closest living relative of the Meg (I.e. the great white shark)
I'm good with the Meg shark getting a size upgrade. It'll be interesting to see what an updated size estimate works out to be considering the newest paper.
When I was momentarily distracted I misheard "a unique fish would need" as "a unique fish with knees" and snapped back to attention. "They discovered WHAT NOW?!" I had to listen to it a few more times before I finally clued in. I think it's second-cup-of-coffee-o'clock. Thank you for another fantastic shark week! I look forward to it every year. While Megalodon is probably the species of prehistoric marine life I'm least interested in (sacrileges, I know) it's always nice seeing two of my main interests overlap. Thank you for continuing to provide educational and interesting content!
What are the odds that both you guys and another channel I follow (Wild World) would both upload a video on the real size of Megalodon within one minute of each other?
Imagine if megaladon was basically pug faced with borzoi body proportions. Obviously, it's not actually shaped like a dog, but just shark version of those traits
Youd never see a pug faced dog in the wild, it wouldnt survive due all the breathing issue. That was a man made defect that was put into that breed (similiar to tiny legs on Corgies). Prolly the same thing would be true of a giant predator like Megalodon, which would have needed to have huge mouthfuls of meat from each bite
The evolving research on Megalodon is fascinating! From being perceived as a massive, stocky predator to now potentially having a more elongated body, the giant shark continues to surprise us. It's incredible how new findings can shift our understanding of prehistoric creatures.
Makes sense, I was always skeptical of the super bulky ultra fast predator meg. 20 to 40 meter vertebrates tend to be more elongated in their body plans. So Megalodon following that trend is plausible.
Simply the best summary of the history of megalodon sizing on YT at the moment (I was involved in the 2021 summed crown width study). Yes, as always more is coming on the subject.
Perhaps the basking shark is a closer approximation to the shape of the Meg? Obviously, there would be some differences due to niche, but basking sharks do have big heads and long bodies.
I sort of doubt it. Basking sharks are rather thin compared to the predatory lamniform sharks like whites, makos, etc. Their heads, while large relative to their bodies, are not heavily built. They’re just big, floppy filter feeders which happen to have a lamniform body plan. Of course they can and have caused a lot of damage to boats when thrashing around in self-defense, they’re simply not built to tangle with big prey, and wouldn’t be very good at it even if you gave them big teeth. Even if the Meg had a thinner body plan than we thought, that’s not necessarily thin compared to other sharks, because the prevailing view of Meg was that it was stockier than even the biggest white sharks. I’m thinking a thinner Meg body plan would look something like a smaller adult white shark in the 13-15 foot range, or perhaps a porbeagle or salmon shark, or even a big grander mako. Except much bigger of course.
@@bluemarlin8138basking shark was considered for sternes et al by a scholar as they have similar morphometry...But it seems they still gone with mako.or like a tiger shark
The megalodons in those films don't even move correctly. Even if they're dumb movies they're still hard to get serious enjoyment out of once you understand how these animals would actually move.
There is an associated dentition of its immediate predecessor Otodus chubutensis which is in a Swiss museum. The dentition with skull and vertebrae was smuggled out of Peru, so most scientists ignore it. I believe that is the one that you have pictured at the end of your video.
Given that it hunted Whales & competed with predatory Whales like Livyatan, Otodus megalodon must’ve been a colossal Shark, much larger than any Whale Shark alive today.
Let that sink in, the ectothermic whale sharks are as small as 40-60 cm newborns and can grow up to at least 18.8 m, perhaps theoretically up to 21.9 m (Ong 2020). The same study found a 10 m female was 50 years old and this species is thought to reach 100 years old. The regionally endothermic megalodon were as large as 2 m when born and the Belgian specimen, now estimated to have been at least 15.9 m, was 46 years old and megalodon is estimated to have got as old as whale sharks. Yup, it seems it was larger than whale sharks.
I think long thinish Megalodon makes sense. From what I remember Megalodon lived in shallow oceans like Basilosaurus once did, and Basilosaurus is long and thin for a whale.
@@The_PokeSaurus Megalodon favored coastal areas just like white sharks today (which are not basilosaurus like in shape) and meg teeth have been found in remote abyssal deposits.
@@The_PokeSaurus Not at all, but it does not mean it was basilosaurus style either. Especially when you look at the study, they say "White sharks have a thicker vertebral column than short- fin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) and porbeagle (Lamna nasus) sharks at a comparable body length (Gottfried et al., 1996; Natanson et al., 2002; Doño et al., 2015) but with a similar mass (Kohler et al., 1995)." This suggests that smaller vertebral girth is not necessarily indicating lighter weight in those sharks. The meg vertebrae are robust and still suggest a robust fusiform body, not almost serpentine like Basilosaurus, AFAIK.
You'd be surprised to read this but I still have a few old '60s-'70s encyclopedias saying that the largest estimate size for a Great White was 12 meters long. That's right. Not the Meg, but just a regular, still-existent Great White. The tiger shark's largest size was 10 mts. And then the greatest estimated size for the actual Meg was about 25-30 mts long. This I read somewhere else. Back in the '90s. Yeah every shark was absolutely gigantic.
Did all of these people in the comments just not watch the end of the video at all? Clearly says that the Meg was likely LARGER than current estimates suggest. It’s bizarre watching nerds wanting this crazy shark to be smaller rather than larger!
There’s always a tendency for people to fanboy over the physical characteristics of their favorite animals and denigrate those of their least favorite. And some people just like make themselves feel superior by throwing out lowball size estimates and saying they’re a “realist.”
Unfortunately I don't think his characters dies until later on. I could be wrong though as I accidentally started midway through the books soooooooo I have no clue 😂
The Megalodn, which is one of my favourite sharks. I believe it’s still alive today, though it has moved into deeper waters because of its size and the size of its prey. Think about it the prey gets bigger the deeper you go than at the surface
What if: The Megalodon ends up being a completely unique shark where it's dimensions are completely different from any other shark? Similar to Bulldogs & French Bull dogs? What if they had a massive head and a short stubby body? Maybe they lived more like Stone fish/Frog Fish? Slowly moving around the ground in the shallows and quickly striking with their massive mouths and massive teeth? I'm just playing around with some hypothetical speculative evolution ideas lol
That would be interesting, but the vertebral column find implies it can't be shorter than 11 meters. And with there being much larger individual vertebrae, it's likely bigger.
So good to see and hear a real presentation by a real human. Not a series of clips with accompanying artificial voice where I can't help but concentrate upon pronunciation errors. THANK YOU SIR !
@spaceace1006 great whites can swim at 25mph and have been seen bursting at 40 peak, so a slender hydro/aerodynamic muscular animal could easily do that your talking if its built close to a mako it could be faster than white sharks meaning faster than the average car on the road.
this is an unrealistic ridiculous calculation and even under fifty tons there's no way it can thrust it's body through open water faster than any mackerel shark with all of that weight on it however, a more elongated body may have contradicted that though I highly doubt this would have enabled it to swim "faster" as the reports say. if that was the case then why didn't it evolve with the great white shark which was said to have overlapped even predated meg's existence. if that were the case we should still be seeing it undoubtedly. There is no clear evidence that it had survived so why even bother stating that it was able to swim faster than today's sharks when clearly there's no way that it's true if they weren't able to fight off orcas and other modern cetaceans such as sperm whales. a larger shark to either of these is easy pickings as they're a lot easier to spot and identify. with that being said I simply cannot agree that they were able to swim "faster." 🧐
@@PurpleDracAn elongated body form would be more hydrodynamic, assuming it wasn’t otherwise more “draggy” and assuming the Meg could generate similar power relative to its mass. After all, a blue whale can hit over 30 mph despite being the heaviest whale by far, and can actually swim faster than the much stockier killer whale in short bursts. However, it requires more exertion to do this due to its large size and resulting heat retention. (But it cruises much faster.) A Meg with a more elongated body form would likely have a high cruising speed and could probably match the white shark in short bursts, but would tire more quickly. Also, an elongated, “skinny” Meg would only be skinny relative to the largest white sharks, which is what its currently theorized body plan is analogous to. White sharks under about 16’ are significantly thinner, as are makos, salmon sharks, and porbeagles-the other mackerel sharks. A body plan like a 13 foot white shark or a big mako would probably be closer to what we’re talking about here. Also, there’s no credible scientist who thinks that Megalodon couldn’t fight off killer whales or sperm whales, at least not as an adult. Megs simply weren’t able to satisfy their caloric needs when the populations of whales dropped and/or migrated outside their preferred habitats. Killer whales and white sharks needed a lot fewer calories, and could therefore sustain themselves on smaller marine mammals and fish, which wouldn’t offer enough calories for a Meg to replace those burned in hunting them (especially since they were smaller and more agile prey, which would mean a lower success rate for Meg’s). Sperm whales were adapted to hunt giant squid and other deep-sea animals, and Megs were simply not built for that. But in a fight, a Meg would most likely wreck a sperm whale (although they might just find easier prey than a 60+ foot bull), or even multiple killer whales (which were smaller when Meg was around). But again, early killer whales could have preyed on Meg’s young. But as for the adults, Meg outlived Livyatan, so killer/sperm whales weren’t a threat to them in that sense.
@@bluemarlin8138you are right sternes mentioned in his paper although mako and porbeagle had a slimmer vertebral column compared to greatwhite shark, at comparable length they weigh similar .Even some enthusiast estimated a 21. 7m mako to be 100.6 tons. So the shark is actually getting bigger especially study about potential 25m++ megalodon apparently named yellowstone hyperpredator soon its study will be releasedinvividenyoutubechannel..Also recently some tokyo scientists did work on megalodon placoid scales, and they found its cruising speed similar to gws
I mean the slender body shape can indeed be true not going to lie, but megalodons are still extinct so we still may never know what it actually looked like.
All the megalodon euphemisms had me cracking up! But this is an excellent update on recent megalodon-related papers and their meaning. I wouldn't be surprised to see a longer, but more slender form accepted. I'm glad that we're finally moving away from using modern laminid sharks only distantly related to meg, especially the white shark, in estimating meg's body proportions. Can you IMAGINE a full body fossil being found with Lagerstätte-type preservation? It would change everything and would be a truly intimidating specimen.
"Big Fish of Death"? Sharkzilla? "Megatooth " Love it LOL maybe we should just agree on Appititius Gigantius I am fascinated by sharks just like most of us with a paleo thing going and this one is fun (doesnt sound like quite the right word but .....)
Megalodon was actually three feet long, with one enormous tooth which it used to dig for clams. "Megs" traveled in huge schools to compensate for their very poor eyesight, as glasses had not yet been invented. Hence the large number of teeth that are found.
I wonder what its hunting strategy was, the idea of an ambush predator that big just thrashing through the water to catch a whale is terrifying. I wonder what kind of turbulence in the water it would cause?
I love how we started out with estimates ranging anywhere from 24 to even 30 meters long, then modern estimates scaled it way back and put it at around 15 meters, sometimes up to 18 meters, now we've classified it as an entirely different type of shark and realized it was way bigger than we thought and now it's back to 20-24 meters again
@@william3100muuch like Kanga and Malta then. For many years the 23 ft+ length measurements/estimations were debunked by those who thought they knew better. Now it is considered likely that the original 23ft+ lengths were in fact reasonable. In spite of this, white shark maximal length is still generally accepted to be 20ft, when the reality is that a maximal length of 25ft is entirely plausible, that's 25% longer than currently accepted. Applying the same logic to a 25m Meg takes it to 30m+, a freaking big fish....give or take a white shark 👍
@@ftgoggi4715So you are telling it could reach blue whale lengths .Then wait for svp 2024 this October-November something special going to happen for megalodon...A big specimen apparently called yellowstonehyperpredator ,a studygoingtoreleaseaboutit .Probably could reach 25m++
It's always so interesting to see how science works. Hypothesis, model, new hypothesis challenges model and proposes a new one, new hypothesis challenges the methodology of the prior model, and the cycle repeats.
Love this stuff! I'm 73 now and watched T Rex go from a tail-dragging lumbering behemoth to a bird-like balanced behemoth. Any way you cut it, meg was a monster. Very exciting to watch this unfold. Brother Thomas, thank you for another OUTSTANDING video. You're a teacher. And thank you for not dipping in to this "meg is alive" bullshit.
if the size was truly underestimated then i feel like it would be around 70-75 feet also i always though the megalodon looked like a huge great white and mako in a combo but i guess i am wrong i also assumed it was faster than any shark today but it’s wrong too maybe?
Yet another fantastic video showcasing all of the work from the historic to the very current on a fascinating subject that will no doubt continue to be informed by new discoveries and hotly debated for many years to come. You present everything so clearly to viewers like myself (who have no scientific training) without ever dumbing down the science of the source material. I’m such a fan of your channel, and learn so much whilst being thoroughly entertained - please keep the wonderful content coming!
This joke becomes real with dunk and what you said there wired fish with gigantic jaws bigger than white shark jaws and they still alive like the crocodile fish and the dragon fish , eels gives you feel they're reptiles more than fish
So it's possible that the Meg was a bit more like the Mako shark! A fast cruising shark, who could possibly attack with an extreme burst of speed! Despite its large size!
Speaking of basking sharks being regional endotherms, I learned the other day that they will sometimes breach. There's a few videos on TH-cam. Not sure if they know why they do it. Possibly to show off fitness for mating purposes?
Megalodingdong wasn't very long actually, it just had enormous teeth...this caused the other marine life to tease it into extinction. It's a very sad, and yet, somewhat funny history
Another interesting story I stumbled upon a web is in smithsonian magazine, cite "Did Great White Sharks Drive Megalodon to Extinction? An earlier extinction date puts megalodon’s fall in line with the rise of the great white"
The decline of Megalodon from unrelated causes could have created the niche that great whites filled rather than through competition. It's all just speculation at this point 🤷♂
@@AwesomeFish12this's mathematically incorrect. Do you honestly think something with jaws that massive would have more slender physique? No way. Not saying it isn't possible I mean it's scientific class has since changed but c'mon. those jaws were unmatched and would've had to sustain itself.
@@PurpleDracMore slender than a great white doesn’t mean it was skinny. White sharks are the most heavily built sharks by far, with only very large bull sharks coming anywhere close. A Meg could have been built like a big mako, or even a sub-adult white, and still be a lot more slender than a big 18 foot white shark.
@@bluemarlin8138 that's kinda what came into frame there for instance. The forty five footer from Deep Blue Sea would've been prime meg without a doubt. that's the more accurate calculation I'd say. love studying this shark. it's scientific genus might've changed but the fascination with the aura of this massive shark is still kickin 💯💯 it's scary to think it died out just ages before man came into existence but cool to discover that it looked more similar to massive bulls than white sharks or makos ... one of these years we'll get a more accurate detail on how it looked. To think great white predates meg is unbelievable to me which says even more about this specimen. it survived arguably one of the most challenging times to be a shark in earths oceans.
I did some research myself and the findings are it wasn’t a shark at all. Convergent evolution was at play. It actually was an early hedgehog relative. The animal was only 8 feet long. Basically a square. And yes it spit venom
Megalodons died out estimated 3.6-2.6M years ago. So far DNA extraction has been successful up to 1.6M years ago with the specimen well preserved in ice - this is regarded as the ceiling of how long DNA will remain in bone structures. After that it will be gone, and even at 1.6M you would struggle getting much. Let's revisit in 100 years time, with different technology it may just be possible..
Whatever the size and body type. It was a big fish that I'm glad it's extinct. There is enough creepy critters in the ocean, without having a greyhound bus with teeth swimming around.
Oh, lordy. That second Meg movie was beyond bad. The first one was silly but entertaining. The second was absolute trash...😙 Can anyone tell me where the name Mackerel Shark came from? Why are they referred to as Mackerel? I thought it was just a small oily fish. More than 60 feet!?!?! Holy crap! What a nightmare...😵 Great Video.
I dont think a few meters, larger or smaller, really matter. The point is that it was huge compared to the sharks that we have today, and it could easily swallow us whole. It was large enough to prey upon any current animal in our oceans. Until we find an adult fully mature Meg, everything is just an estimate or guess. Meg's were their own species just as all the other creatures are. Without having clear tissue fossils or a fresh one, we really dont know exactly what it looked like. We are guessing everything about it and using Great White Sharks as the model. As everything in our oceans becomes food for something else sooner or later, finding an intact fossil with the soft tissue outline or imprint and its cartilage fossilized so we can see how it really was, just about everything is theory, guesses, and rough comparisons, except for it's teeth. That we know about, at least how large they were.
We have cretalamna fossils Either a direct ancestor (current consensus) Or close relative of its ancestor I used that for my up to date model at 23m and using lamnids due to similarity in ecology being 1.large 2.endothermic 3. Macropredatory 4. Otodontids are sister to lamnids (currently) All these factors together along with cretalamna’s lamnid-like bodyplan heavily implies a lamnid bodyplan Also shimada’s recent papers have not been the best as I’ve been told Especially the slow swimming paper supposedly having data modified to fit the conclusion
Estimating a Meg's length is very difficult to the least. If not impossible given what we actually now about it. Its appearance ? Well, most "life-size" models don't make the Meg shine, since so-called "real meg" models look like a gentle "baby face" giant fish. May it be longer than what we think ? Yes. Heavier ? Who knows... Was it freaking scary to look at ? Likely. Truth is, we don't have enough information to make a realistic estimate of a Meg's true length, weight, or appearance. Still, I believe it was a huge, bulky and scary shark.
Funny when people tell me that megalodon had the strongest bite force of any animal but yet there hasn’t been any jaw bones found so they just got the great white and scaled up the bit force to its size.
From high resolution pictures taken from magazines at a hairdresser. They have been able to extrapolate that it is exactly as long as from the tip of its nose to the tip of his tail
So basically the size of megalodon depends on which scientist you ask and what method he decided to use or create to come up with the sharks size. Got it!
"So how big was Megalodon?"
"Big."
"Exactly how big was it?"
"Yes."
Big boi
Really big boi
Megalodon was atleast a few meters long
"Are you sure about that?"
"Maybe?"
@@afunnytheropod That was unexpectedly funny XD
@@afunnytheropod
Megalodon was about the size of a shark
Spino: "so... folks are confused about what you looked like too?"😒
Meg: .... "yep."🤷🏾♂️
"If I had a nickel for every prehistoric enormous aquatic predator that had its body restoration constantly changed due to a lack of a definitive skeleton, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice."
@@primrosevale1995I know you’re just joking but Spinosaurus wasn’t an aquatic predator
@NorskaFjordskaOfficial 🥸 I guess your not quite caught up on the recent theories of it being a semi aquatic animal
@@breyden9363 you said “aquatic”, not “semi-aquatic” also… wrong emoji
@@albatross4920 not as confused as spino
We have a decent view tbh
Not exactly like tyrannosaurus but we have a decent inclination
As a shark expert, I can confidently say that megalodon was the size of a megalodon-sized shark
100% accurate
Can't argue with this science
Thank you for confirming my gut feeling about this topic.
You just study megalodongs 😅
You should do climate science dood😂
The size of a normal shark. It just had enormous, buck teeth that other sharks made fun of.
That must be why it went extinct 😔
This hurts to read
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Haha. Poor meggy, bet he whistles really well.
@@alemswazzu ... Don't you need air to whistle?
At least as big as a golden retriever. Possibly even bigger.
It's smaller than a Great Dane, though.
Somewhere between megayacht and miniature labradoodle.
Definitely bigger than a breadbox.
You know I think it actually might be bigger than a golden retriever though this is just a theory
Smaller than Clifford the big red dog.
Megalodon has seen how much attention Spinosaurus was getting with all the controversies and decided to give it a try.
Since wen is there not controversy on spinosaurus. It's like something new each year
Gotta love how both still manage to generate a lot of controversity. For Megalodon we don't have many remains apart from the teeth and vertebrae, and for Spinosaurus we don't actually know if the remains we have, are actually Spinosaurus. Given that the holotype was destroyed in WWII. These already included remains of maybe a different species.😅 At least for the new Moroccan Spinosaurid material we know quite well how it looked. Except for some important detail.
"Murder Guppy"... Love it!
Murder murder murder, guppy guppy guppies
Murder! (Murder)
Guppies! (Guppies)
Clap clap
Murder Guppies!
Clap clap
Murder Guppies! 🎶
The fact that a juvenile specimen is in a private collection is utterly disheartening.
If it is the specimen I think it is, it is a composite with some elements not even being megalodon. So don't worry too much about this one.
@@Paralititan”If”?
@@Timbo6669 Well I have seen one displayed at the Aathal private collection. But I think it is owned by someone else. That one is definitely a composite and I am unsure if the jaw parts are real or not.
@@Paralititannormally only the teeth are fossilised for sharks (since most of their skeleton is cartilage). There is not a single full specimen of a megalodon, therefore ALL complete fossil specimens are composites. The only real Megalodon fossils in existence are teeth and vertebrae, everything else are models based on the anatomy of the closest living relative of the Meg (I.e. the great white shark)
You could have one too.
Megalodon: has another change
Spinosaurus: first time?
I'm good with the Meg shark getting a size upgrade. It'll be interesting to see what an updated size estimate works out to be considering the newest paper.
Wait n see
When I was momentarily distracted I misheard "a unique fish would need" as "a unique fish with knees" and snapped back to attention. "They discovered WHAT NOW?!" I had to listen to it a few more times before I finally clued in. I think it's second-cup-of-coffee-o'clock.
Thank you for another fantastic shark week! I look forward to it every year. While Megalodon is probably the species of prehistoric marine life I'm least interested in (sacrileges, I know) it's always nice seeing two of my main interests overlap. Thank you for continuing to provide educational and interesting content!
It was the size of a goldfish, just with a really really big head
like Erythrosuchidae
Dunkleosteus
😂😂😂😂😂😂👍👍
Goofy ahh emojis
and one huge tooth
What are the odds that both you guys and another channel I follow (Wild World) would both upload a video on the real size of Megalodon within one minute of each other?
Not very high!
Shark week, pretty high
Maybe keeping up with the recent paleontology news?
I was about to say the exact same thing lol
@@Paleo_Kid The last paper about it potentially being more elongated wasn't that new
"A Grounded Scientifically accurate depiction in the next Meg movie... " why i love this Channel 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Loved the books. Couldn’t even finish the second movie.
@@x77Flip77xThe prehistoric Meg that ate the T-Rex and the largest villain of the 3 (Scarface) were hilarious lol. Basically Kaiju-sized.
Enjoyed the movies. Loved the books by Steve Alten
This channel spreads misinformative videos. He caused so much damage.
@@Megalodon_ProductionsHow so? He sounds objective, but I am not a shark expert.
Cannot wait for the early 1900 estimates to be correct the entire time.
what size 80 or 98feet?
Me too
@@arielmartin4310actually it's going to happen study is coming up in another 25 days on October 30
@@ISURAH-484 then... great news !!!
@@arielmartin4310huh only the size has been revealed 24m 200ton
"Transoceanic Super Predators" is just badass classification
Whether it was 60 feet or 48 feet, or whatever, it was still the single largest predatory shark species we've ever known.
more than 80feet
Regardless of the true agreed size, I would be absolutely terrified to see any animal with teeth that big approaching me, while I am treading water.
Imagine if megaladon was basically pug faced with borzoi body proportions. Obviously, it's not actually shaped like a dog, but just shark version of those traits
Sounds like a mahi mahi
Youd never see a pug faced dog in the wild, it wouldnt survive due all the breathing issue. That was a man made defect that was put into that breed (similiar to tiny legs on Corgies). Prolly the same thing would be true of a giant predator like Megalodon, which would have needed to have huge mouthfuls of meat from each bite
Length : Bus and a half
Height : Lampost
Weight : 1300 baby crocodiles
The evolving research on Megalodon is fascinating! From being perceived as a massive, stocky predator to now potentially having a more elongated body, the giant shark continues to surprise us. It's incredible how new findings can shift our understanding of prehistoric creatures.
Makes sense, I was always skeptical of the super bulky ultra fast predator meg. 20 to 40 meter vertebrates tend to be more elongated in their body plans. So Megalodon following that trend is plausible.
Agree
Simply the best summary of the history of megalodon sizing on YT at the moment (I was involved in the 2021 summed crown width study).
Yes, as always more is coming on the subject.
Magalodon is the spino of the sea. Unless you believe spino was full aquatic then none of this makes sense
Wrong. Sperm whales are the rexes of the sea.
@@neo-filthyfrank1347 Oh you haven't been paying attention in class.
@@matthewdavies2057 It's true. They are the rexes of the c
They never met.
@@neo-filthyfrank1347Meg had the strongest bite force of any animal like Rex did on land
A fine, well-balanced and, above all, non-sensationalist discussion on this fascinating subject.
Perhaps the basking shark is a closer approximation to the shape of the Meg? Obviously, there would be some differences due to niche, but basking sharks do have big heads and long bodies.
I sort of doubt it. Basking sharks are rather thin compared to the predatory lamniform sharks like whites, makos, etc. Their heads, while large relative to their bodies, are not heavily built. They’re just big, floppy filter feeders which happen to have a lamniform body plan. Of course they can and have caused a lot of damage to boats when thrashing around in self-defense, they’re simply not built to tangle with big prey, and wouldn’t be very good at it even if you gave them big teeth. Even if the Meg had a thinner body plan than we thought, that’s not necessarily thin compared to other sharks, because the prevailing view of Meg was that it was stockier than even the biggest white sharks. I’m thinking a thinner Meg body plan would look something like a smaller adult white shark in the 13-15 foot range, or perhaps a porbeagle or salmon shark, or even a big grander mako. Except much bigger of course.
@@bluemarlin8138basking shark was considered for sternes et al by a scholar as they have similar morphometry...But it seems they still gone with mako.or like a tiger shark
As i had said before, there's an 80' Megladon set of jaws that had 2 men standing+ 6 seated at NYC museum of natural History
So dunkleotius get smaller but megalodon gets bigger so that’s probably a accuracy of the the meg films
The megalodons in those films don't even move correctly. Even if they're dumb movies they're still hard to get serious enjoyment out of once you understand how these animals would actually move.
Megalodon pretty much confirmed preying on whale
@@neo-filthyfrank1347 Or once you read the books....the movies are not even close.
@@jritechnology The books are garbage too lmao
@@neo-filthyfrank1347 The first few are fun garbage though. I also thought the first movie was fun garbage (the second one was horrendous).
Didn't some study recently propose that the Megladon may have looked more like a Tiger Shark rather than the Great White?
Megalodon and Spinosaurus: 🤝🏻 Having our size/design changed more times than Flint, Michigan Water
I hope they never said they never exit or they're mammals after all
first 24 meter Megalodon: "You Couldn't Live with Your Own Failure, Where Did That Bring You? Back to Me"
"How big was Megalodon, really?" "Why do you think I'm loading torpedoes?"
There is an associated dentition of its immediate predecessor Otodus chubutensis which is in a Swiss museum. The dentition with skull and vertebrae was smuggled out of Peru, so most scientists ignore it. I believe that is the one that you have pictured at the end of your video.
One big shark, that's putting it lightly
Given that it hunted Whales & competed with predatory Whales like Livyatan, Otodus megalodon must’ve been a colossal Shark, much larger than any Whale Shark alive today.
Let that sink in, the ectothermic whale sharks are as small as 40-60 cm newborns and can grow up to at least 18.8 m, perhaps theoretically up to 21.9 m (Ong 2020). The same study found a 10 m female was 50 years old and this species is thought to reach 100 years old.
The regionally endothermic megalodon were as large as 2 m when born and the Belgian specimen, now estimated to have been at least 15.9 m, was 46 years old and megalodon is estimated to have got as old as whale sharks.
Yup, it seems it was larger than whale sharks.
Really want people to think you're smart, huh
Remember baleen whales were much smaller when megalodon lived. The size of modern dolphins.
@@Luritsas A lot of them were closer to the size of modern orcas, but the point still stands.
@@MrGksarathy Orcas are dolphins
Good luck with getting to the bottom of this megladon size issue i look forward to your findings and keep up the good work
I think long thinish Megalodon makes sense. From what I remember Megalodon lived in shallow oceans like Basilosaurus once did, and Basilosaurus is long and thin for a whale.
Basilosaurus was coastal, megalodon did not live in shallow oceans...
@@francissemyon7971 Then why do we find most Megalodon teeth in areas that used to be shallow oceans?
@@The_PokeSaurus Megalodon favored coastal areas just like white sharks today (which are not basilosaurus like in shape) and meg teeth have been found in remote abyssal deposits.
@@francissemyon7971 I'm rather confused on what you're trying to get at. Are you saying you disagree with the new reconstruction of Megalodon?
@@The_PokeSaurus Not at all, but it does not mean it was basilosaurus style either. Especially when you look at the study, they say "White
sharks have a thicker vertebral column than short-
fin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) and porbeagle
(Lamna nasus) sharks at a comparable body
length (Gottfried et al., 1996; Natanson et al., 2002;
Doño et al., 2015) but with a similar mass (Kohler
et al., 1995)."
This suggests that smaller vertebral girth is not necessarily indicating lighter weight in those sharks.
The meg vertebrae are robust and still suggest a robust fusiform body, not almost serpentine like Basilosaurus, AFAIK.
You'd be surprised to read this but I still have a few old '60s-'70s encyclopedias saying that the largest estimate size for a Great White was 12 meters long. That's right. Not the Meg, but just a regular, still-existent Great White.
The tiger shark's largest size was 10 mts.
And then the greatest estimated size for the actual Meg was about 25-30 mts long. This I read somewhere else. Back in the '90s.
Yeah every shark was absolutely gigantic.
Did all of these people in the comments just not watch the end of the video at all? Clearly says that the Meg was likely LARGER than current estimates suggest.
It’s bizarre watching nerds wanting this crazy shark to be smaller rather than larger!
whats weird is its the nerds who get all angry because it was so much bigger than any reptile
They are jealous of how succesful sharks are in ecosystem. Because they can never imagine or dream being succesful as sharks.
There’s always a tendency for people to fanboy over the physical characteristics of their favorite animals and denigrate those of their least favorite. And some people just like make themselves feel superior by throwing out lowball size estimates and saying they’re a “realist.”
I hope Megalodons were happy with their size and did not fall victim to shark fat shaming
Listen Ben, as long as the fish eats Jason Stachan in the next Meg film, I don't really care if it's all that accurate. Just so long as it noms him.
Unfortunately I don't think his characters dies until later on. I could be wrong though as I accidentally started midway through the books soooooooo I have no clue 😂
Mega movie the 🦈 is 60m not 25m even
@@evilcrashbandicootthetouho2753yellowstone hyperpredator study will release this year,that megalodon size could have been 27m+
@@ISURAH-484 his fossil just one jaw remembered this it called less size than killer whale 🐋 same what's happened with armored fish
Jason who?
I appreciate you showing that you are actually speaking and not AI ....good job
Yes! SHARK WEEK!
The Megalodn, which is one of my favourite sharks. I believe it’s still alive today, though it has moved into deeper waters because of its size and the size of its prey. Think about it the prey gets bigger the deeper you go than at the surface
Meg is just the new spino
Wait what?????? It walks on friggin land?!?!!
@@srobeck77 i ment how we think it looked keeps changing.
Save the land sharks for low budget movies haha.
@@dagoodboy6424And its size is going to change from 20-[25m-30m?]
more like new t rex
they keep getting buffed as if they weren't already the most powerful predators of all time in land and sea
@@alfrdhrnndz by "respective ecosystem" you mean "land" at any and every point in the Earths history
Ben you do excellent work I just wanted to say that
What if: The Megalodon ends up being a completely unique shark where it's dimensions are completely different from any other shark? Similar to Bulldogs & French Bull dogs? What if they had a massive head and a short stubby body? Maybe they lived more like Stone fish/Frog Fish? Slowly moving around the ground in the shallows and quickly striking with their massive mouths and massive teeth? I'm just playing around with some hypothetical speculative evolution ideas lol
Bulldogs are the result of selective breeding. Such things don’t happen naturally
titan frogfish sounds like some dope creature from subnautica
@@fauresfaures4314 omg that would actually be such a cool concept for a creature in movies or video games lol
That would be interesting, but the vertebral column find implies it can't be shorter than 11 meters. And with there being much larger individual vertebrae, it's likely bigger.
Absolutely possible, sharks have evolved into so many weird forms it's difficult to be sure of anything
I’m waiting for a Dunkleosteus plot twist for the Meg.
So good to see and hear a real presentation by a real human. Not a series of clips with accompanying artificial voice where I can't help but concentrate upon pronunciation errors.
THANK YOU SIR !
11:06 By "cruise," you mean just it's average "walking" speed, right? Because a Megalodon going faster than a Mako shark would be insane.
@spaceace1006 great whites can swim at 25mph and have been seen bursting at 40 peak, so a slender hydro/aerodynamic muscular animal could easily do that your talking if its built close to a mako it could be faster than white sharks meaning faster than the average car on the road.
@@frasercakeactually a recent study confirmed megalodon was as fast as gws
this is an unrealistic ridiculous calculation and even under fifty tons there's no way it can thrust it's body through open water faster than any mackerel shark with all of that weight on it however, a more elongated body may have contradicted that though I highly doubt this would have enabled it to swim "faster" as the reports say. if that was the case then why didn't it evolve with the great white shark which was said to have overlapped even predated meg's existence. if that were the case we should still be seeing it undoubtedly.
There is no clear evidence that it had survived so why even bother stating that it was able to swim faster than today's sharks when clearly there's no way that it's true if they weren't able to fight off orcas and other modern cetaceans such as sperm whales. a larger shark to either of these is easy pickings as they're a lot easier to spot and identify. with that being said I simply cannot agree that they were able to swim "faster." 🧐
@@PurpleDracAn elongated body form would be more hydrodynamic, assuming it wasn’t otherwise more “draggy” and assuming the Meg could generate similar power relative to its mass. After all, a blue whale can hit over 30 mph despite being the heaviest whale by far, and can actually swim faster than the much stockier killer whale in short bursts. However, it requires more exertion to do this due to its large size and resulting heat retention. (But it cruises much faster.) A Meg with a more elongated body form would likely have a high cruising speed and could probably match the white shark in short bursts, but would tire more quickly. Also, an elongated, “skinny” Meg would only be skinny relative to the largest white sharks, which is what its currently theorized body plan is analogous to. White sharks under about 16’ are significantly thinner, as are makos, salmon sharks, and porbeagles-the other mackerel sharks. A body plan like a 13 foot white shark or a big mako would probably be closer to what we’re talking about here.
Also, there’s no credible scientist who thinks that Megalodon couldn’t fight off killer whales or sperm whales, at least not as an adult. Megs simply weren’t able to satisfy their caloric needs when the populations of whales dropped and/or migrated outside their preferred habitats. Killer whales and white sharks needed a lot fewer calories, and could therefore sustain themselves on smaller marine mammals and fish, which wouldn’t offer enough calories for a Meg to replace those burned in hunting them (especially since they were smaller and more agile prey, which would mean a lower success rate for Meg’s). Sperm whales were adapted to hunt giant squid and other deep-sea animals, and Megs were simply not built for that. But in a fight, a Meg would most likely wreck a sperm whale (although they might just find easier prey than a 60+ foot bull), or even multiple killer whales (which were smaller when Meg was around). But again, early killer whales could have preyed on Meg’s young. But as for the adults, Meg outlived Livyatan, so killer/sperm whales weren’t a threat to them in that sense.
@@bluemarlin8138you are right sternes mentioned in his paper although mako and porbeagle had a slimmer vertebral column compared to greatwhite shark, at comparable length they weigh similar .Even some enthusiast estimated a 21. 7m mako to be 100.6 tons. So the shark is actually getting bigger especially study about potential 25m++ megalodon apparently named yellowstone hyperpredator soon its study will be releasedinvividenyoutubechannel..Also recently some tokyo scientists did work on megalodon placoid scales, and they found its cruising speed similar to gws
_Otodus megalodon_ truly is the _Spinosaurus aegyptiacus_ of shark.
I mean the slender body shape can indeed be true not going to lie, but megalodons are still extinct so we still may never know what it actually looked like.
That's false. We will know what Megalodon looked like. We have more than enough remains. Stop living under a rock.
Sometimes when i feel upset about something in life, I stop and think.... 'Megalodon are extinct' ...and I feel much better again.
All the megalodon euphemisms had me cracking up! But this is an excellent update on recent megalodon-related papers and their meaning. I wouldn't be surprised to see a longer, but more slender form accepted.
I'm glad that we're finally moving away from using modern laminid sharks only distantly related to meg, especially the white shark, in estimating meg's body proportions.
Can you IMAGINE a full body fossil being found with Lagerstätte-type preservation? It would change everything and would be a truly intimidating specimen.
Freeza: Bigger! Bigger! BIGGER! Perfect!
They always seem to base images of the Megalodon on a huge elderly Female Great White!
Why you always checkin under the hood at those sharks genitalia?
"Big Fish of Death"? Sharkzilla? "Megatooth " Love it LOL maybe we should just agree on Appititius Gigantius I am fascinated by sharks just like most of us with a paleo thing going and this one is fun (doesnt sound like quite the right word but .....)
Megalodon was actually three feet long, with one enormous tooth which it used to dig for clams. "Megs" traveled in huge schools to compensate for their very poor eyesight, as glasses had not yet been invented. Hence the large number of teeth that are found.
I wonder what its hunting strategy was, the idea of an ambush predator that big just thrashing through the water to catch a whale is terrifying. I wonder what kind of turbulence in the water it would cause?
I love how we started out with estimates ranging anywhere from 24 to even 30 meters long, then modern estimates scaled it way back and put it at around 15 meters, sometimes up to 18 meters, now we've classified it as an entirely different type of shark and realized it was way bigger than we thought and now it's back to 20-24 meters again
Looks like the older estimates were correct this whole time(as far as we know).
@@william3100muuch like Kanga and Malta then. For many years the 23 ft+ length measurements/estimations were debunked by those who thought they knew better. Now it is considered likely that the original 23ft+ lengths were in fact reasonable. In spite of this, white shark maximal length is still generally accepted to be 20ft, when the reality is that a maximal length of 25ft is entirely plausible, that's 25% longer than currently accepted. Applying the same logic to a 25m Meg takes it to 30m+, a freaking big fish....give or take a white shark 👍
@@ftgoggi4715So you are telling it could reach blue whale lengths .Then wait for svp 2024 this October-November something special going to happen for megalodon...A big specimen apparently called yellowstonehyperpredator ,a studygoingtoreleaseaboutit .Probably could reach 25m++
@@ftgoggi4715you heard about yellowstone hyperpredator
Yellowstone hyperpredator might be 28m ,but will see@@ftgoggi4715
It's always so interesting to see how science works. Hypothesis, model, new hypothesis challenges model and proposes a new one, new hypothesis challenges the methodology of the prior model, and the cycle repeats.
The only giant prehistoric animal whose size had to be corrected upwards instead of downwards.
Untrue, cause they just up'd the largest Ichthyosaur at 100 feet
Love this stuff! I'm 73 now and watched T Rex go from a tail-dragging lumbering behemoth to a bird-like balanced behemoth. Any way you cut it, meg was a monster. Very exciting to watch this unfold. Brother Thomas, thank you for another OUTSTANDING video. You're a teacher. And thank you for not dipping in to this "meg is alive" bullshit.
if the size was truly underestimated then i feel like it would be around 70-75 feet also i always though the megalodon looked like a huge great white and mako in a combo but i guess i am wrong i also assumed it was faster than any shark today but it’s wrong too maybe?
Yet another fantastic video showcasing all of the work from the historic to the very current on a fascinating subject that will no doubt continue to be informed by new discoveries and hotly debated for many years to come. You present everything so clearly to viewers like myself (who have no scientific training) without ever dumbing down the science of the source material. I’m such a fan of your channel, and learn so much whilst being thoroughly entertained - please keep the wonderful content coming!
Megalodon was the size of a Blue shark, it just had one tooth in the top and bottom of its mouth 😁
This joke becomes real with dunk and what you said there wired fish with gigantic jaws bigger than white shark jaws and they still alive like the crocodile fish and the dragon fish , eels gives you feel they're reptiles more than fish
So it's possible that the Meg was a bit more like the Mako shark! A fast cruising shark, who could possibly attack with an extreme burst of speed! Despite its large size!
What about Livyatan? We really have know idea how big that thing got considering we only have one specimens head and a couple teeth to go by
Speaking of basking sharks being regional endotherms, I learned the other day that they will sometimes breach. There's a few videos on TH-cam. Not sure if they know why they do it. Possibly to show off fitness for mating purposes?
Another issue is not knowing the age of the creature, that the fossils belong to.
This so fascinating you are amazing Blown away ! Well done respect ❤❤❤
Megalodingdong wasn't very long actually, it just had enormous teeth...this caused the other marine life to tease it into extinction. It's a very sad, and yet, somewhat funny history
Another interesting story I stumbled upon a web is in smithsonian magazine, cite "Did Great White Sharks Drive Megalodon to Extinction?
An earlier extinction date puts megalodon’s fall in line with the rise of the great white"
The decline of Megalodon from unrelated causes could have created the niche that great whites filled rather than through competition. It's all just speculation at this point 🤷♂
@@AwesomeFish12this's mathematically incorrect. Do you honestly think something with jaws that massive would have more slender physique? No way. Not saying it isn't possible I mean it's scientific class has since changed but c'mon. those jaws were unmatched and would've had to sustain itself.
one other small detail they didn't say much about and that it ate whales ... yah. 😐
@@PurpleDracMore slender than a great white doesn’t mean it was skinny. White sharks are the most heavily built sharks by far, with only very large bull sharks coming anywhere close. A Meg could have been built like a big mako, or even a sub-adult white, and still be a lot more slender than a big 18 foot white shark.
@@bluemarlin8138 that's kinda what came into frame there for instance. The forty five footer from Deep Blue Sea would've been prime meg without a doubt. that's the more accurate calculation I'd say. love studying this shark. it's scientific genus might've changed but the fascination with the aura of this massive shark is still kickin 💯💯
it's scary to think it died out just ages before man came into existence but cool to discover that it looked more similar to massive bulls than white sharks or makos ... one of these years we'll get a more accurate detail on how it looked.
To think great white predates meg is unbelievable to me which says even more about this specimen. it survived arguably one of the most challenging times to be a shark in earths oceans.
6:00 oh thank GAWD! Only a 15 meter murder guppy
I did some research myself and the findings are it wasn’t a shark at all. Convergent evolution was at play. It actually was an early hedgehog relative. The animal was only 8 feet long. Basically a square. And yes it spit venom
Megalodons died out estimated 3.6-2.6M years ago. So far DNA extraction has been successful up to 1.6M years ago with the specimen well preserved in ice - this is regarded as the ceiling of how long DNA will remain in bone structures. After that it will be gone, and even at 1.6M you would struggle getting much. Let's revisit in 100 years time, with different technology it may just be possible..
Whatever the size and body type. It was a big fish that I'm glad it's extinct. There is enough creepy critters in the ocean, without having a greyhound bus with teeth swimming around.
Oh, lordy. That second Meg movie was beyond bad. The first one was silly but entertaining. The second was absolute trash...😙
Can anyone tell me where the name Mackerel Shark came from? Why are they referred to as Mackerel? I thought it was just a small oily fish.
More than 60 feet!?!?! Holy crap! What a nightmare...😵
Great Video.
I really enjoyed your show it was actually longer than 65 Feet more like
70 or 75 Feet long.
Actually 90feet
Thanks for upload... very interesting.
I dont think a few meters, larger or smaller, really matter. The point is that it was huge compared to the sharks that we have today, and it could easily swallow us whole.
It was large enough to prey upon any current animal in our oceans.
Until we find an adult fully mature Meg, everything is just an estimate or guess. Meg's were their own species just as all the other creatures are. Without having clear tissue fossils or a fresh one, we really dont know exactly what it looked like. We are guessing everything about it and using Great White Sharks as the model. As everything in our oceans becomes food for something else sooner or later, finding an intact fossil with the soft tissue outline or imprint and its cartilage fossilized so we can see how it really was, just about everything is theory, guesses, and rough comparisons, except for it's teeth. That we know about, at least how large they were.
The thing that gets me is the number of crazy people who want this monster to still exist.
Scientists: So how big are you?
Megalodon: *yes*
So that takes the weight down drastically, no wonder they couldn’t make it till mosasaurus died out, mosa kept em from evolving so big
We have cretalamna fossils
Either a direct ancestor (current consensus)
Or close relative of its ancestor
I used that for my up to date model at 23m and using lamnids due to similarity in ecology being
1.large
2.endothermic
3. Macropredatory
4. Otodontids are sister to lamnids (currently)
All these factors together along with cretalamna’s lamnid-like bodyplan heavily implies a lamnid bodyplan
Also shimada’s recent papers have not been the best as I’ve been told
Especially the slow swimming paper supposedly having data modified to fit the conclusion
TELL THEM! 🗣️🔥🔥🔥
Cretalamna is also cartilaginous fish so we don't have that fossil
Estimating a Meg's length is very difficult to the least. If not impossible given what we actually now about it. Its appearance ? Well, most "life-size" models don't make the Meg shine, since so-called "real meg" models look like a gentle "baby face" giant fish.
May it be longer than what we think ? Yes. Heavier ? Who knows... Was it freaking scary to look at ? Likely.
Truth is, we don't have enough information to make a realistic estimate of a Meg's true length, weight, or appearance. Still, I believe it was a huge, bulky and scary shark.
*_comment offering for the algorithm gods_*
Funny when people tell me that megalodon had the strongest bite force of any animal but yet there hasn’t been any jaw bones found so they just got the great white and scaled up the bit force to its size.
Are you saying that the Meg is larger than the Blue Whale.????
?
Meg has been reported to have been the size of a school bus.😮
The maximum size currently is 23M and 146 tons, but there is a supposed new Meg specimen “Yellowstone Hyperpredator” that could be even bigger.
Big fishy of death seems like a good T-shirt
the shark in the thumb nail has thee most goofy over bit i have ever seen! It looks like a freaking Simpsons character🤣
Looks like Whoopi Goldberg lol
Google goblin shark
Yeah, really not the best reconstruction to use for the thumbnail, or in general
There’s way goofier reconstructions
I love your channel, Ben. Just heading over to One World to see what shark-related content your Mum has to offer! Best wishes, Bud!
How big....really? You mean the other articles lied about its size?
Right now it's 82feet
From high resolution pictures taken from magazines at a hairdresser. They have been able to extrapolate that it is exactly as long as from the tip of its nose to the tip of his tail
Everyone's all hyped about Megalodon, but I like Livyatan way more.
Mammal bias, both deserves hype.
@@francissemyon7971 It was a personal opinion. I do have a shameless mammal bias, though, especially towards predatory whales.
@@MrGksarathy Haha indeed.
Tbh Meg has nothing unique its only a big shark Livyatan on the other hand is not just the upscaled version of some modern day animal.
Yeah yeah, whatever, you can go like Livyatan all you want, it wouldn’t stand a chance against the megalodon
Family guy predicted the meg years ago , but Peter called it bigger jaws lol
You plugging your mom’s channel is so sweet!
So basically the size of megalodon depends on which scientist you ask and what method he decided to use or create to come up with the sharks size. Got it!