It hasn't been easy forming a picture of the megalodon, a massive shark that dominated the oceans millions of years ago, because fossil finds include only teeth and vertebrae. But researchers in 28 countries now believe they have a good idea of what the shark looked like after comparing megalodon vertebrae, including a 36-foot-long section of trunk, with other extinct and living sharks, per Live Science. The findings, published Sunday in Palaeontologia Electronica, indicate that a newborn megalodon could've reached 13 feet, about the length of an adult great white shark, per Oceanographic. At full size, a megalodon could've ranged between 54 feet and 80 feet, the length of two school buses and about 15 feet longer than previous estimates.
Thought to have weighed around 94 metric tons, comparable to a blue whale, the megalodon is often imagined as a gigantic great white shark, but that's largely based on assumptions that, because the megalodon had similar serrated teeth, it must've had a similar body. In fact, the megalodon was probably longer and sleeker than a great white, closer to the shape of a lemon shark, researchers say, per USA Today. While the great white's stocky body with a sharp taper toward the tail is made for bursts of speed, the megalodon's more slender body, with a less pronounced taper, "makes a lot more sense for moving efficiently through water," shark biologist Phillip Sternes tells Oceanographic.
The study suggests the megalodon could reach high speeds when going after prey, but balanced those bursts with a slower, cruising style at moderate speed. Though that would've made it a more efficient swimmer than the great white, the megalodon may have ultimately been out-competed by the smaller shark, leading to its extinction some 3 million years ago, according to the study. In the end, the great white would've been far more adaptable, Sternes tells USA Today. However, one expert tells Live Science that "while the proposed body plan is possible, it should be treated as a working hypothesis, and previous reconstructions can't yet be definitively ruled out." (More sharks stories.)
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