Page 25 - Eclipse - Autumn/Winter 2022

RESEARCH NEWS

Extinct shark with teeth bigger

than your mobile phone could

eat prey the size of killer whales

n international collaborative of a great white shark which was
team of researchers, including scaled up and fitted with 3D scans
from the RVC, have used of a megalodon dentition. The resulting
Aadvanced 3D modelling to skull was then scaled and attached to
discover the movement and feeding the vertebrae, producing a base model
ecology of the biggest shark to have ever of a megalodon skeleton.
roamed the oceans – the megalodon A 3D scan of the full body of a
(Otodus megalodon). The results from great white shark was used to add
the reconstruction suggest that a single flesh around the megalodon skeleton,
adult megalodon could have eaten prey producing a full 3D model of its whole
as large as a killer whale and roamed body. This allowed the scientists to
the seas without food for two months.
measure the megalodon’s surface area,
Until today, there has been little fossil volume and centre of mass. From this,
evidence of the marine giant beyond its they could calculate swim speed,
teeth. While scientists have previously stomach volume and daily energy
used tooth measurements and requirements based on relationships
comparisons with other shark species to seen in living sharks.
determine the length of the megalodon The reconstructed megalodon
(up to 20 meters), lack of other remains was 16 meters long and weighed
make it difficult to accurately infer how more than 61 tons. It was also estimated
much the extinct giant could eat or how that it could swim at around 1.4 meters
far it could swim.
per second, required more than
Using 3D digital modelling methods, 98,000 kilocalories every day and had
designed originally by the RVC for a stomach volume of almost 10,000 litres
modelling dinosaurs, the team used – making it capable of eating prey as
scans of fossilised vertebrae found big as eight metres – the approximate
in Belgium to reconstruct the spinal equivalent of a modern Orca. Eating this
column, scaling it to real size. They amount would have allowed the shark to
then recreated the skull of a megalodon swim thousands of miles across oceans
using an existing 3D scan of the skull without eating again for two months.

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