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Context: Using fossil evidence to create a three-dimensional model, researchers have found new evidence about the life of one of the biggest predatory animals of all time — the Megalodon.

Details:

• According to the study, the Megalodon was bigger than a school bus at around 50 feet from nose to tail. In comparison, the great white sharks of the present can grow to a maximum length of around 15 feet.
• According to the new study published in the journal Science Advances, the Megalodon could “completely ingest, and in as few as five bites,” a prey as big as the killer whale.
• Using their digital model, the researchers have suggested that the giant transoceanic predator would have weighed around 70 tonnes — or as much as 10 elephants.
• Megalodons roamed the oceans an estimated 23 million to 2.6 million years ago.
• Using a previously established relationship between speed and body mass, researchers calculated that the Megalodon had an average cruising speed faster than sharks today.
• According to the research team, the Megalodon had the ability to migrate across multiple oceans.

3D modelling research:

• The technique was used as the Megalodon’s skeleton is made of soft cartilage that doesn’t fossilize well.
• Using fossils that were available, including mainly teeth and a rare collection of vertebrae that has been with a Belgium museum since the 1860s, computer modelling was used to reconstruct the entire body of the extinct and largest known macropredatory shark.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-sci-tech/this-word-means-megalodon-sharks-8098489/

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