The megalodon shark has long been considered the most ferocious predator to ever swim the earth, but a new study revealed that it may have been even bigger than previously imagined.
According to a study led by the University of Bristol and Swansea University, a 16-meter-long Otodus megalodon likely had a head round 4.65 meters long, a dorsal fin approximately 1.62 meters tall and a tail around 3.85 meters high. This means an adult human could stand on the back of this shark and would be about the same height as the dorsal fin.
“Megalodon was actually the very animal that inspired me to pursue paleontology in the first place at just six years old, so I was over the moon to get a chance to study it,” lead author Jack Cooper said. “This was my dream project. But to study the whole animal is difficult considering that all we really have are lots of isolated teeth.”
Researchers made close comparisons to a diversity of living relatives with ecological and physiological similarities to Megalodon. They found that the megalodon, which lived from 23 to around three million years ago, was over twice the length of a Great White and had a bite force of more than ten tons.
“Megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the Great White but is equally related to other macropredatory sharks such as the Makos, Salmon shark and Porbeagle shark, as well as the Great white,” Dr. Catalina Pimiento from Swansea University said. “We pooled detailed measurements of all five to make predictions about Megalodon.”
“This means we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern forms and project the overall shape as they get larger and larger—right up to a body length of 16 meters,” Cooper said.
The full study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.