True size of prehistoric mega-shark finally revealed -- ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200903095637.

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FOSSILS & RUINS

True Size of
Prehistoric Mega-
Shark Finally
Revealed

Boy or Girl? It's in the Father's

Genes
Megalodon illustration (stock image).
Exploding Stars May
Credit: © warpaintcobra / stock.adobe.com Have Caused Mass
Extinction on Earth,
Study Shows
To date only the length of the legendary giant shark
Strange & Offbeat
Megalodon had been estimated. But now, a new study led
by the University of Bristol and Swansea University has re-

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True size of prehistoric mega-shark finally revealed -- ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200903095637.htm

vealed the size of the rest of its body, including fins that are
PLANTS & ANIMALS
as large as an adult human.
In Butterfly Battle of Sexes, Males
Deploy 'Chastity Belts' but Females
There is a grim fascination in determining the size of the largest sharks, but Fight Back
this can be difficult for fossil forms where teeth are often all that remain.
Hearing Loss in Naked Mole-Rats Is
Today, the most fearsome living shark is the Great White, at over six metres an Advantage, Not a Hardship
(20 feet) long, which bites with a force of two tonnes. A 400-Year-Old Chamois Will Serve
Its fossil relative, the big tooth shark Megalodon, We starvalue yourmovies,
of Hollywood privacyas a Model for Research on Ice
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lived from
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around three
partners million
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a Great White andashad a biteidentifiers
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standard information sent by a device for personalised ads and
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of the and content
aremeasurement, and audience
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teeth bigger andEarth's Oxygen
improve products.
Rusted the Moon for
than a human hand. Billions of Years?
With your permission we and our partners may use precise geolocation data and identification through
Jack Cooper, who has just completed the MSc in Palaeobiology at the
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University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, and colleagues from Bristol Fossil Evidence of 'Hibernation-Like'
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in 250-Million-Year-Old
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First Complete to thisSkeleton
Dinosaur website only.
Ever Found Is Ready for Its Closeup
The project was supervised by shark expert Dr Catalina Pimiento from at Last
Swansea University and Professor Mike Benton, a palaeontologist at Bristol.
FOSSILS & RUINS
Dr Humberto Ferrón of M Bristol
O R Ealso
O Pcollaborated.
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True Size of
Their findings are published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Prehistoric Mega-
Shark Finally
Jack Cooper said: "I have always been mad about sharks. As an undergrad- Revealed
uate, I have worked and dived with Great whites in South Africa -- protected
by a steel cage of course. It's that sense of danger, but also that sharks are Newly Discovered Rare Dinosaur
Embryos Show Sauropods Had
such beautiful and well-adapted animals, that makes them so attractive to Rhino-Like Horns
study.
Atlantic Sturgeon in the King's
"Megalodon was actually the very animal that inspired me to pursue Pantry -- Unique Discovery in Baltic
palaeontology in the first place at just six years old, so I was over the moon Shipwreck from 1495
to get a chance to study it.

"This was my dream project. But to study the whole animal is difficult consid-
ering that all we really have are lots of isolated teeth."

Previously the fossil shark, known formally as Otodus megalodon, was only
compared with the Great White. Jack and his colleagues, for the first time,
expanded this analysis to include five modern sharks.

Dr Pimiento said: "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. We pooled
detailed measurements of all five to make predictions about Megalodon."

Professor Benton added: "Before we could do anything, we had to test

whether these five modern sharks changed proportions as they grew up. If,
for example, they had been like humans, where babies have big heads and
short legs, we would have had some difficulties in projecting the adult pro-
portions for such a huge extinct shark.

2/5 6.9.2020 klo 16.00

True size of prehistoric mega-shark finally revealed -- ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200903095637.htm

"But we were surprised, and relieved, to discover that in fact that the babies
of all these modern predatory sharks start out as little adults, and they don't
change in proportion as they get larger."

Jack Cooper said: "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 metres."

The results suggest that a 16-metre-long Otodus megalodon likely had a

We value
head round 4.65 metres long, a dorsal fin approximately 1.62your
metres privacy
tall and
a tail around 3.85 metres high.
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Materials provided by University of Bristol. Note: Content may be edited

for style and length.

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Related Multimedia:

Palaeoartist reconstruction of Megalodon

Journal Reference:

1. Jack A. Cooper, Catalina Pimiento, Humberto G. Ferrón, Michael J.

Benton. Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus mega-
lodon: a 2D reconstruction. Scientific Reports, 2020; 10 (1) DOI:
10.1038/s41598-020-71387-y

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True size of prehistoric mega-shark finally revealed -- ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200903095637.htm

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