New research from a team of biologists from DePaul University, William Paterson University and the University of California — Los Angeles, suggests that the massive ocean predator megalodon may have been warm-blooded and that this may have ultimately resulted in its demise as a species.
The team used a system called ‘clumped’ isotope thermometry to study the teeth of both living and extinct marine vertebrates from species of carcharhiniform and lamniform sharks found in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans from mid-Miocene and Pliocene eras. Through the CIT analysis, the team found that megalodons maintained a higher body temperature compared with its modern lamniform equivalent,the great white shark, owing to its much larger body size. While still preliminary, these results may provide clues as to what may have led to the demise of megalodon.
The megalodon’s ability to thermoregulate acted as “a key driver for the evolution of gigantism that impacted its ecological role and success in surviving environmental changes” and suggests that that may have been an influence in its extinction due to predator-prey dynamics or environmental change.
These findings were presented during a panel on Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology at this week’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C.
According to the presentation’s abstract:
“One hypothesis is that O. megalodon consumed large quantities of prey in order to
maintain such a high body temperature. However, cooling of ocean temperatures during the Pliocene would have constrained the species to lower latitudes where ocean temperatures were warmer, whilst its preferred prey (e.g., whales) evolved traits to adapt to cooler temperatures of the higher latitudes. Therefore, large climatic shifts combined with evolutionary limitations may provide the “smoking gun” for the extinction of the largest shark species to ever roam the planet.”
Little is known about the megalodon other than it was one of the largest marine predators on the planet, reaching lengths of over 60 feet. It first appeared in the fossil record nearly 20 million years ago but mysteriously disappeared completely nearly 2.5 million years ago. Another recent theory of why the megalodon suddenly went extinct is that cosmic energy from the collapsing star may have been responsible for the mass extinction that occurred on Earth during the Pliocene era some 2.6 million years ago.