Why did Megalodon go extinct? - Jack Cooper and Catalina Pimiento
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20 million years ago, the ocean housed a creature so colossal that its stomach could reach volumes of almost 10,000 liters— big enough to fit an entire orca. It was the megalodon, the biggest shark to ever live. So, what was it like when megalodon ruled the seas? And what brought this formidable predator to extinction? Jack Cooper and Catalina Pimiento investigate.
Additional Resources for you to Explore
The precise body length of the animal aside, what adaptations allowed megalodon and its ancestors to evolve such giant sizes? This blog by PhD researcher Jack Cooper, written for the Bristol Dinosaur Project, dives into the unique physiology of megalodon that was likely a key driver of its gigantism and discusses the scientists whose work helped uncover this.
In addition to its teeth, megalodon has left trace evidence of the nasty injuries it left behind on animals that fell victim to its bite. This blog by PhD researcher Hannah Bird covers a particularly fascinating case study, originally published by Stephen Godfrey and Brian Beatty, in which a small whale suffered tremendous damage to its vertebrae. An associated megalodon tooth found with this almost broken backbone implicates the giant shark as the culprit behind the injury. Most extraordinary of all, however, was evidence of healing found on the broken bone – indicating that the whale miraculously survived the attack. Evidence like this gives us insight into how megalodon may have hunted its prey.
Lastly, while megalodon may be the biggest and most famous prehistoric shark, it is only a small part of a huge lineage stretching back over 400 million years. Learn more about the evolution of sharks, why their teeth are so common in the fossil record, and how they have survived so many mass extinctions in this article by the Natural History Museum in London.
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Jack Cooper, Catalina Pimiento
- Director Vitalii Nebelskyi, and action creative agency
- Narrator Jack Cutmore-Scott
- Storyboard Artist Marginai Iryna Harkavets, Olya Barabakh
- Animator Volodymyr Boiko, Teymur Bzikadze
- Project Manager Dmytro Koval
- Art Director Olya Barabakh
- Composer Cem Misirlioglu, Work Play Work
- Sound Designer Cem Misirlioglu, Work Play Work
- Director of Production Gerta Xhelo
- Produced by Abdallah Ewis, Anna Bechtol
- Editorial Director Alex Rosenthal
- Editorial Producer Cella Wright
- Fact-Checker Charles Wallace