Using an exceptionally well-preserved fossil of the mountainous shark megadolon (Otodus megalodon), a global team of researchers created the first 3D model of megadolon’s physique and feeble it to infer its scramble and feeding ecology. Their results imply that an adult megadolon may maybe maybe cruise at quicker absolute speeds than any shark species at the present time and completely exhaust prey as a lot as 8 m (26 toes) long, the dimensions of contemporary apex predators.
Otodus megalodon. Image credit score: J.J. Giraldo.
Otodus megalodon, a member of the extinct family Otodontidae, used to be the finest identified macropredatory shark.
Fossil stays of this huge consist mainly of enamel. On the premise of the age, morphology, and worldwide distribution of the fossils, it has been proposed that Otodus megalodon used to be a cosmopolitan predator that lived from the Miocene to the Pliocene, from 23 to 2.6 million years within the past.
Its extinction has been attributed to a reduction of productive coastal habitats within the Unhurried Pliocene, which seemingly prompted the lack of alternative marine megafaunal species, many of which will were Otodus megalodon prey, and the look of seemingly opponents.
“Shark enamel are commonplace fossils thanks to their bright composition which permits them to remain well preserved,” said Swansea University Ph.D. pupil Jack Cooper.
“On the other hand, their skeletons are fabricated from cartilage, in articulate that they no longer frequently fossilize.”
“The megalodon vertebral column from the Royal Belgian Institute of Pure Sciences is therefore a one-of-a-form fossil.”
In the be taught, Cooper and colleagues measured and scanned each vertebra, earlier than reconstructing the total column.
They then attached the column to a 3D scan of Otodus megalodon’s dentition from the US.
They performed the model by adding ‘flesh’ accurate by the skeleton the usage of a 3D-scan of the physique of a gargantuan white shark from South Africa.
“Weight is definitely one of an critical traits of any animal,” said Royal