Professor Benton added: "Before we could do anything, we had to test whether these five modern sharks changed proportions as they grew up. We pooled detailed measurements of all five to make predictions about Megalodon." Jack and his colleagues, for the first time, expanded this analysis to include five modern sharks.ĭr 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. Previously the fossil shark, known formally as Otodus megalodon, was only compared with the Great White. But to study the whole animal is difficult considering that all we really have are lots of isolated teeth." "Megalodon was actually the very animal that inspired me to pursue palaeontology in the first place at just six years old, so I was over the moon to get a chance to study it. It's that sense of danger, but also that sharks are such beautiful and well-adapted animals, that makes them so attractive to study. As an undergraduate, I have worked and dived with Great whites in South Africa - protected by a steel cage of course. Jack Cooper said: "I have always been mad about sharks. Their findings are published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Dr Humberto Ferrón of Bristol also collaborated. The project was supervised by shark expert Dr Catalina Pimiento from Swansea University and Professor Mike Benton, a palaeontologist at Bristol. Jack Cooper, who has just completed the MSc in Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, and colleagues from Bristol and Swansea used a number of mathematical methods to pin down the size and proportions of this monster, by making close comparisons to a diversity of living relatives with ecological and physiological similarities to Megalodon. The fossils of the Megalodon are mostly huge triangular cutting teeth bigger than a human hand. Its fossil relative, the big tooth shark Megalodon, star of Hollywood movies, lived from 23 to around three million years ago, was over twice the length of a Great White and had a bite force of more than ten tonnes. Today, the most fearsome living shark is the Great White, at over six metres (20 feet) long, which bites with a force of two tonnes. There is a grim fascination in determining the size of the largest sharks, but this can be difficult for fossil forms where teeth are often all that remain.
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