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Megalodonwas the most monolithic shark that ever lived , and its gargantuan girth was highly unusual even among shark , scientists latterly discovered .
In fact , Megalodon ’s giantism — it ’s estimated to have measured up to 50 feet ( 15 meters ) in distance , about as long as a bowling lane — was " off - the - weighing machine , " research worker pen in a new study .
Gigantism was common in extinct lamniform sharks — the group that includes Megalodon — but Megalodon was the biggest by far.
Evidence from extinct and living shark in the order Lamniformes , the mathematical group that admit Megalodon , revealed that not only was the king of sharks an utmost outlier when compared with modern mintage ; it was also substantially vainglorious than the next - biggest extinct shark in the Lamniformes fiat by at least 23 foot ( 7 m ) , the scientists report .
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Modern sharks are comparative pipsqueaks next to Megalodon ( Otodus megalodon ) . The biggest known predatory species , thegreat white shark(Carcharodon carcharias ) , grows to only about 20 fundament ( 6 m ) long , and the filter - feedingwhale shark(Rhincodon typus ) , the gravid Pisces species alert today , quantity about 18 to 33 feet ( 6 to 10 metre ) from nose to tail tip , on average . ( However , the biggest known whale shark mensurate a walloping 62 feet ( 19 megabyte ) long , researchers reported in 2015 in the journalPeerJ. )
Schematic drawing showing the distribution of maximum possible sizes of all known non-planktivorous genera in the shark order Lamniformes, comprising modern (in gray) and extinct (in black; with hypothetical silhouettes) members and in comparison with an average adult human (in red) for scale.
There are 13 species of lamniform sharks alive today ; these include mako shark ( theIsurusgenus ) , deep - ocean goblin shark ( Mitsukurina ) , and thresher shark ( Alopias ) , as well as slap-up whites .
Most Megalodon fossils engagement to around 15 million years ago , and lamniforms were plentiful from the terminal of theMesozoic era(252 million to about 66 million years ago ) into the earlyCenozoic era , ( 65 million eld ago to the present ) . However , little is know about the anatomy of extinct lamniforms ; since shark skeletons are made of gristle rather than bone , they are extremely scarce in the fossil phonograph record , economise for their plentiful fossilized tooth , tell lead work author Kenshu Shimada , a professor of paleobiology at DePaul University in Chicago and a research associate at the Sternberg Museum in Kansas .
Tooth sizing can be used to reckon a shark ’s body size because as shark grow they unendingly replace their dentition , get fresh and adult unity over time . In the newfangled sketch , Shimada and his colleagues bring forth a new puppet for calculating body distance : an equation representing the actual quantitative kinship between body length and tooth size in lamniforms . They based it on the teeth and known body length from 32 specimen of living , predatory lamniform sharks , representing all 13 species that are not plankton - eaters , Shimada tell Live Science in an e-mail . They then applied their equation to nonextant predatory lamniforms .
– In photos : shine - in - the - dark shark
– icon : Sharks and whale from above
– On the threshold : A gallery of wild shark
The scientist found that many extinct lamniform shark were quite large , with four Mesozoic genus ( Cretodus , Cretoxyrhina , HispidaspisandScapanorhynchus ) and four Cenozoic genera ( Alopias , Carcharodon , IsurusandOtodus ) holding at least one shark mintage that grew to more than 20 feet ( 6 m ) in length .
Why does this group have so many supersize sharks ? Their giantism may be fueled by a reproductive strategy : Bearing live young " with a unique cannibalistic ball - consume conduct " that nourishes too soon - hatching embryos , enable them to grow big while still inside their mothers by feeding on their siblings , Shimada said in the electronic mail .
But even though the researchers found that giantism was vernacular in multiple lamniform lineages , Megalodon dwarfed nonextant sharks , too .
" We expect Megalodon to be large , " Shimada said . What they did not anticipate was that there would be a gap of 23 feet ( 7 m ) between Megalodon and the next - largest predatory lamniform shark in the fossil record , he say . allot to their computing , all other lamniforms that did not eat plankton grew no braggart than 23 feet in length , the author reported .
While the Megalodon picture is now a little clear than it was before , many fundamental question about the size of the massive ace - shark are still unreciprocated , such as the particulars of its body structure and what caused Megalodon ’s over - the - top gigantism , Shimada say .
" Why Megalodon became extinct is another grownup fundamental enquiry that remains uncertain , " he supply .
The findings were release online today ( Oct. 5 ) in the journalHistorical Biology .
EDITOR ‘S NOTE : The clause was update on Oct. 7 to include the length of the biggest substantiate giant shark .
Originally publish on Live Science .
