Megalodon not as big as we once thought!

[AndresVida]

(06-27-2022, 07:31 PM)Semyon Wrote: An outlier is the 24 m male Physeter in a sample of 500 000 (McClain 2015). GHC-6 is certainly not as exceptional as this, especially when taking into account the regional size differences (Pimiento 2015, Shimada 2022).
The 20 m data in Perez et al. is itself somewhat conservative being the mean of the range (17.4-24 m) and using the lowest regression available here.

20,3 was actually the alleged mean of such range, but the same study mentioned that the 24 m long estimate is an exagerration derivied from error (very common when you have one of the most fragmentary animals on the planet of which you don't know it's true proportions and the rest is just nice speculation)

*This image is copyright of its original author

Source : https://www.researchgate.net/publication...dentitions

I don't buy 24 meters either, 19 - 20 m seems more reasonable.

And yes, even if the 24 meters long estimate is real, ghc-6 would still be an outlier since it is crossing the max reported size range of megalodon just quoted at 19 - 20+ meters. It doesn't matter if there might be an even larger individual out there, always using the leopard example a 91 kg leopard is an outlier just like the 98 kg male from north Iran since both have reached the max reported size of this species.
So no matter if there's an even 24 meters long megalodon out there, any megalodon reaching the max reported size is therefore an outlier specimen.

For a female cold water Otodus Megalodon offhand

13-14 m would be below average probably immature or exceptionally small females
15 - 16 m would be average
17 - 19 m would be large
20+ meters would be exceptionally large where the largest specimens (aka outliers) can be found Reply