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NEW evidence suggests megalodon sharks looked very different from the giant great whites depicted in sci-fi movies.
Recent research suggests the shark, which lived around 15 to 3.6 million years ago, was actually longer and more slender than other studies claim.
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Most of what we know about megalodon sharks comes from giant fossilized teeth.
A full fossilized specimen of the ancient beast has never been found.
That’s likely because shark skeletons are predominately made of cartilage which rapidly decays.
For that reason, scientists have to estimate what the shark would have looked like.
Previous studies have estimated that megalodons grew up to 65 feet long.
Modern great white sharks have largely been used as a model to estimate the megalodon body shape.
A new study published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica is now contesting this idea.
Kenshu Shimada is a paleobiology professor at DePaul University and co-leader of the study.
Shimada said: “The remarkably simple evidence that O. megalodon had a more slender body than the great white shark was hidden in plain sight.”
The researchers re-analyzed fossils and previously published studies to draw their conclusions.
They particularly focussed on two studies describing the same incomplete set of fossilized megalodon shark vertebrae.
One study said that this particular ancient shark’s vertebral length was 36 feet.
The other claimed it was just 30 feet long.
“It was a ‘eureka-moment’ when our research team realized the discrepancy between the two previously published lengths for the same Megalodon specimen,” Shimada explained.
“The new study strongly suggests that the body form of O. megalodon was not merely a larger version of the modern great white shark,” co-leader Phillip Sternes said.
“Even though it remains uncertain exactly how long the body of O. megalodon was elongated relative to the great white shark, this new finding marks a major scientific breakthrough in the quest to decipher what Megalodon looked like.”
Shimada described the hunt for the truth about megalodon sharks as a “continued mystery” that’s both “fascinating and exciting.”
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