On land, humans are afraid of snakes, and if the most feared in the ocean is sharks, of course, this is also related to the promotion of many film and television works, such as the childhood nightmare "Jaws", every time you swim in the sea, you will be terrified. But in fact, sharks are not terrible, there are not many sharks that really attack humans, most of them are relatively friendly, according to the statistics of the data every year because of shark attacks and deaths, even can not catch up with the harm of mosquitoes.
Megalodon, as the name suggests, is a shark with huge teeth, and their size is naturally not small according to the proportions, and it is considered to be one of the largest marine predators ever, but it does not exist at present.
Megalodon sharks mainly lived 22 million to 3 million years ago, and modern sharks, megalodon sharks are huge, scientists according to the so far found megalodon tooth fossils and some vertebrae fossils, compared with the bones of great white sharks, found that it is much larger than the great white shark. According to the proportions, then the megalodon shark will be very large, with an average length of 14 meters, the longest will even exceed 18 meters, and the weight will be more than 50 tons.
We can see the real contrast between the teeth of the megalodon shark and the great white shark in the picture above, which is a world of difference. Megalodon's tooth fossils cover almost the entire hand of an adult, while the teeth of the great white shark are slightly "stingy". And the second is the jaw of the megalodon shark recovered by scientists based on the fossil teeth of the megalodon shark, which looks very scary, and humans may really not be enough to plug the teeth, and we must also feel fortunate that the megalodon shark lives not an era.
Such a behemoth, a sharp-bodied megalodon shark, can use almost all marine life as food, but it is such a marine predator that has disappeared into the long river of history, leaving only their legends.
In the tropical seas of 10 million years ago, the life of large whales was not so comfortable, they should always be vigilant against predator attacks, unlike now, in addition to killer whales will cause damage to some whales, few sharks will hunt whales, even strong great white sharks are difficult to do, after all, the size difference is a bit large. Just like on land, lions act as top predators, but they rarely attack elephants, and that's the size gap.
Sharks, as cartilaginous animals, live in the ocean, their skeleton fossils are still relatively rare, and the most remaining fossils are teeth.
The reason for the extinction of the powerful megalodon shark has always been a small mystery, scientists speculate that it may be related to changes in the climate and environment, and just recently, a research paper on the megalodon appeared in the internationally renowned journal Nature Communications, perhaps giving the reason for the megalodon's withdrawal from the historical stage.
Previously, about the extinction of megalodon sharks, scientists speculated that it may be related to the gradual cooling of the earth into the ice age many times, and changes in the climate and environment have caused whales to be hit hard, so the megalodon shark that feeds on whales will naturally be affected, especially with the development of various large carnivores in the ocean, competing with megalodons, especially the emergence of smart killer whales, which became the last straw that overwhelmed megalodons.
Scientists analyzed the levels of the two zinc isotopes contained in the enamel of shark teeth to determine the shark's food composition and determine their position in the food chain.
Scientists examined 20 extant shark species and 13 extinct shark tooth fossils, and found that megalodons occupied the top of the food chain for a long time, but with the appearance of great white sharks everything was different. Measurements of zinc isotopes show that great white sharks have the same ecological niche as megalodons after they appear, which means that they are competitive with each other and share almost the same diet.
Previous speculations about the cause of the megalodon's extinction were all climatic reasons, sharp loss of food, etc., but now scientists have a new point of view, it is likely that the food competition of the great white shark eventually led to the megalodon losing the competition. Megalodons are at least 15-20 meters long and weigh more than 50 tons, while great white sharks are up to 6 meters long.
To know that the competition between megalodons and great white sharks is not a military confrontation between them, more is the robbery of food resources, then the small size of the equally fierce great white shark occupies enough advantage, because the demand for food is relatively small, especially when food resources are scarce, megalodon sharks may be hungry, and eventually eliminated by history.
This is the cruelty of nature, the development and evolution of the earth's organisms, sometimes with their own strength and weakness is not very much to do, pay attention to a kind of resilience, in the face of changes in the natural environment, climate environment, the stronger the resistance ability to stand firm. There have been many giant creatures in the history of the earth, and they have eventually dissipated in the long river of history.
Text/science black hole, image source network intrusion deletion.