The Megalodon Was So Huge It Could Have Devoured An Orca In Just a Few Bites

The world's oceans were once ruled by a giant shark. The predator left very little trace of its existence.

We have the first 3D model of the extinct fish, one that shows it could cruise at speeds faster than any shark in the ocean.

Scientists have found that it was so large that it could eat entire prey in just five bites.

The white shark could easily have been swallowed whole by meGalodon.

According to these findings, megalodon was the most powerful predator in the ocean and gave us a better idea of its role.

A team of researchers led by Jack Cooper ofSwansea University in the UK have found that O. megalodon was a transoceanic superpredator.

The extinction likely had a large impact on the food web.

Piecing together the fossils has been a puzzle. About 23 million years ago it appeared on the scene and went extinct 3.6 million years later.

Based on the parts of it that are sturdy enough to survive time, we can estimate its huge size.

There are other parts of a shark that can be fossilized. The bones of the cartilaginous skeleton can be preserved. In the 1860s, we found an amazingly well preserved megalodon spine.

The shark teeth fossils allow them to remain well preserved.

They don't fossilize because their skeletons are made of cartilaginous. It's a one-of-a-kind fossil that's from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science.

There are different shapes and sizes of sharks. White sharks and Megalodon are not members of the same shark family.

Cooper and his team have constructed a model of megalodon that they believe is the most accurate one to date.

The first thing they did was to take a look at every single one of the columns. The scans were used to create a reconstruction of the spine.

A mouth full of teeth was added from a US meGalodon tooth. The body of a white shark from South Africa was filled in with a 3D Scan.

John Hutchinson says that weight is one of the most important characteristics of any animal.

Modern 3D digital modeling methods can be used to estimate the body mass of extinct animals.

The remains of megalodon have been found all over the world, and it's believed that the shark really ruled the ocean. The research shows how that could have happened.

Megalodon's cruising speed was more than three times that of white sharks. The back of the model was formed by the Belgian megalodon, which could grow up to 20 meters long.

Based on the team's model, the Belgian megalodon's mouth would have been able to open up to 1.8 meters. The team thought that a prey animal around 8 meters in length could be eaten in just five bites.

The amount of calories in a meal is enough to sustain megalodon for a couple of months. White sharks can go a month or two without eating if they have enough food.

The disappearance of megalodon from the ocean may have changed the ecology of the sea.

The results suggest that the giant shark was a trans-oceanic super-apex predator.

The extinction of the giant shark is believed to have had an impact on global transport and the release of large cetaceans.

The research was published in a journal.