Megalodon not as big as we once thought!

[GuateGojira]

The world of the Carcharocles (Otodus) megalodon:

In order to investigate an animal is good to know what other creatures lived with it. Normally the "fans" of this shark promote the idea that it was a whale killer and put images of oversized great white sharks killing sperm whales, but that is incorrect.

In fact, in the time of this species, there were not sperm whales, at least not the ones that we know, check this image of the "sperm whales"of that period:

*This image is copyright of its original author

This is a comparative image made by "Palaeos", the Paleontologist from Mexico that has his own youtube channel and is one of the best experts that I know. As we can see, appart from Livyatan melvillei, all the sperm whales were small. By the way, that image of Livyatan is from the smallest estimation (13.5 m), the biggest estimation will be this (check the comparison with the biggest length recorded for the sperm whale):

*This image is copyright of its original author

Other thing is the size of the prey of "megalodon", and as the prey where whales, the "fans" spread the idea that the whales in that time were like the modern ones and put images of sharks killing blue whales! However the truth is that the biggest whales in those days barely reached the 10 meters long, check this comparative images with the whales of that period made by artist "artbyjrc":

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, the biggest prey was smaller than the predator, if the biggest "megalodon" was of about 16 meters and the biggest whale was of 10 meters, the average "megalodon" was of about 10 meters and the average whale of the largest species was of about 6 meters, clearly the shark had advantage on this, so no "fair fight" in this case.

Finally, what about the orca? Remember that I told you that in those days there where no big orcas of 8-9 meters long, but only an species named Orcinus citoniensis that measured about 4 meters long (skull of about 60 cm), this is the reconstruction and its skull:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

By the way, the predator dolphins of those days were also small, check this image:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Based on this, most of the animals that lived in the time of "megalodon" were much smaller than it, with the maximum lengths recorded at 10 m for the biggest Cetotherium. Only the Livyatan was the only animal that matched the size of the giant shark.

Hope this helps to had a better idea of the world of the "megaldon" and its neighbors.


I leave you the video of "Paleos" about the Livyatan and Megalodon for future references:

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