The Megalodon was the worlds biggest Shark to ever roam the water, this shark lived round about 23 to 2.6 million years ago. The period this giant shark lived in was the early Miocene to the end of the Pliocene period. This was one of the most fear predictors within the ocean. The Megalodon Scientific name is Carcharodon megalodon, Megalodon meaning ‘big tooth’ which seem very realistic due to the size of the teeth going from about 5 to 7 inches in length, but these teeth when first discovered were thought to have been dragons tongues or snakes tongues which were petrified, but this theory was put to rest in 1843 by a man called Louis Agassiz, who discovered that these massive teeth actually belonged to the world biggest shark and he gave it the the name Megalodon as it was Latin for big tooth.
With the teeth that size came the actually animal with a bigger size to match. Scientist believe that this shark was able to grow to 60ft long! This was the size of 3 fully grown Great White sharks. The Megalodon was to believe to way over 70 tons that the weight of 10 elephants. This giant shark was believed to have eaten 1 ton of food a day! Due to the shark living in warm waters it had plenty of options for food, and with the bite force 3x more powerful that a tyrannosaurus rex, it could skin it’s teeth into near enough anything it chooses. It main source of food was believed to be, small sea mammals, dolphins, seals, seal lion and it favourite meal was believed to be whale as it was much bigger than the whales in this period, unlike today where the Megalodon would be small compared to Blue whale we know today which can grow to around 100ft long.
Megalodon was an aggressive type of shark, before eating it bait it pray it would either stunt it by charging at from underneath hitting it causing major like haemorrhaging or they would paralysed there prey by biting off the fins making it unable to move before eating it. This was seen as the Megalodon like to play with it food before eating.
The theory for why this giant shark when extinct is due to climate change and the change in water level. The Megalodon was known for liking warm water not cold so when the ice age started to take impact the water began to cool causing it food supply to move and adapt unlike the Megalodon which was not. Also with the sea levels lowering that caused the Megalodon nursery to be uninhabitable for the Megalodon young and this made it easier for the young to be killed and eaten.
