The largest
animal that ever lived is the modern Blue Whale. Blue Whales grow to an
average of 80 feet in length. These enormous mammals eat tiny organisms,
like plankton and krill. Fortunately for us, there are no predators alive
today that come close to being that large, but once there was.
Millions of years ago a giant shark called the Carcharocles
Megalodon swam the oceans. This shark grew to over 60 feet in length and
had a mass of more than 50 tons. Compare that to the shark from the movie
"JAWS" which would have been about 20 feet in length and had
a mass of around 2 tons. It is mind boggling to imagine something that
much larger than the most feared predator in the oceans today.
Scientists believe that the Megalodon
shark evolved into existence around 20 Million years ago and became extinct
two million to three million years ago. During this time, much of the
east coast of the United States was underwater and still part of the Atlantic
Ocean. The reason that they went away is somewhat of a mystery, but it
is thought to be a result of climate changes or the scarcity of the giant
sperm whale, which was their main food source.
A shark is composed mostly of cartilage
that does not fossilize, so today, the only proof that we have that the
Megalodon ever existed is their fossilized teeth. A picture of one of
these teeth is shown below alongside a modern Great White tooth. These
teeth are found in many areas of the world, but most of them come from
coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. Many are found in
mines and pits that have been dug for various reasons. SCUBA divers diving
in tidal rivers find the overwhelming majority of these teeth.
Megalodon teeth come in many different
colors and average between 3”-5” in length. 5.5”-6”
teeth are pretty rare, and 6”+ teeth are very sought after by collectors
and extremely hard to find. A few lucky divers have found a 7” tooth,
but that is kind of like finding a meteorite in your back yard. It is
thought that less than twenty 7” un-restored Megalodon Teeth are
known to exist.
Some people ask if you can determine the
age of a tooth by the color. The answer is that you cannot. The sediment
in which it was buried while fossilizing, not the age of the tooth, determines
the tooth’s color. As the tooth decayed, it absorbed the minerals
around it and became the same color as the sediment.
|
