A bold new study claims we’ve got the megalodon’s shape all wrong. According to the research, the monstrous prehistoric fish known as the megalodon (Otodus megalodon) may have been more of a long and slender shark than the chunky beast depicted by Hollywood.
Nose to tail, the megalodon is generally thought to have been 15-20 metres (50-65 ft) long. It roamed the Earth’s seas between 15 to 3.6 million years ago, but very little evidence exists in the fossil record – with only teeth and vertebrae available rather than any complete skeletons.
That’s why some estimations of its body size have been based on the body of the modern great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), giving it a thick and round figure.
However, the new study, which has been published in journal Palaeontologia Electronica, argues that the megalodon was not just a bigger version of the bulky great white. In fact, they claim the animal was more comparable to the much slimmer, modern-day mako shark.
So what’s the controversy?
Essentially, two groups of scientists are in disagreement about how big megalodons really were.
The new study was led by scientists in the USA, from DePaul University and the University of California, Riverside (UCR). They used a CT scanner on a live great white shark to compare its whole vertebral skeleton to the existing reconstructions of the megalodon specimen’s vertebral column. The team found that the differences between the two were significant enough to suggest that the Meg wasn’t just a bigger great white shark.
“This new finding marks a major scientific breakthrough in the quest to decipher what megalodon looked like,” said first author and UCR PhD candidate Phillip Sternes.
However, when a UK-based research team studied the megalodon’s shape in 2022, they used different methods – and reached a vastly different conclusion. Advanced 3D modelling helped them compare the body structures of several shark species, rather than just the great white.
Pooling together their measurements from these species (which included the great white, mako sharks, and salmon sharks), they predicted that the megalodon was bigger than we thought: so big that its dorsal fins were as tall as an adult human.
The team, including doctoral researcher Jack Cooper at Swansea University and his co-authors, Profs Catalina Pimiento and John Hutchinson, told BBC Science Focus: “While alternative hypotheses should be and are welcomed in science, this new study’s proposal suffers from a circular logic.
"Its basis comes from a criticism of our work in using the great white shark as an ecological analogue to megalodon, which it argues we should not have done … but the 'elongated body' interpretation entirely originates from a comparison to a great white shark.”
The team added that the new paper’s finding is “based on a single observation … and lacks statistical tests. More critically, several aspects of the study are impossible for future researchers to verify or replicate as the authors do not provide the raw data.”
The new paper, the result of a research team of 26 shark experts from around the world, was peer-reviewed – but not by the authors of the previous study.
Yeah but… could Jason Statham still beat up a megalodon?
Regardless of the megalodon's shape, it is still unclear just how long the shark, which went extinct 3.6 million years ago, really was. The team behind the new study say they will need a complete or almost complete skeleton to make any further progress on its shape. In any case, a thinner shark would lead to a scientific re-evaluation of its life, diet and cause of extinction.
That’s because a longer shape would have given the shark a longer digestive canal – which would have made it easier to absorb nutrients. Contrary to the voracious eater that stars in The Meg (2018) and Meg 2: The Trench (2023), a skinnier shark might therefore not have had to eat so often.
What’s not up for debate is whether the megalodon was a giant, likely terrifying, predatory shark. Which it definitely was.
But the ultimate question? Whether Jason Statham could still destroy it in a fight.
“Even if I agreed with that interpretation [of the megalodon’s shape as slender], I don’t think it would change the odds of that fight all that much,” Cooper told BBC Science Focus.
“Regardless of which hypothesis you support – that the shark was either chunky or skinny – the long and short of it is that megalodon was still a very big shark. That’s a lot for poor Jason Statham to deal with either way.”
About our experts
Jack Cooper is a doctoral researcher in palaeobiology at the University of Swansea. His research has been published in Scientific Reports, Scientific Advances, and the Journal of Fish Biology.
Prof Catalina Pimiento is a senior lecturer in palaeontology at Swansea University. Her research has been published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Nature Ecology & Evolution, and Science Advances.
Prof John Hutchinson is a professor of evolutionary biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College. His research has been published in Nature Communications, the Journal of Anatomy, and Science Advances.
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