Megalodon tooth have all the time been key to understanding the traditional marine predator. Fossilized tooth are all that stay to show the existence of those huge sharks, and the title megalodon is from the Greek for “large tooth.”

A brand new research, printed in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, highlights the significance of the megalodon’s human-hand-sized tooth as soon as once more. Due to extracting and analyzing the traces of zinc left within the fossilized tooth, researchers now know that the megalodon’s weight-reduction plan was a lot broader than scientists as soon as believed.

“Megalodon was by all means versatile sufficient to feed on marine mammals and enormous fish, from the highest of the meals pyramid in addition to decrease ranges – relying on availability,” mentioned Jeremy McCormack from the Division of Geosciences at Goethe College, in a press launch.

Learn Extra: The Large Megalodon Could Have Been Even Longer and Sleeker

What Did the Megalodon Eat?

Clocking in at 78 toes in size and weighing about twice as a lot as a semi truck, the megalodon was a giant fish with a giant urge for food. It’s advised {that a} member of the Otodus shark household would require about 100,000 kilocalories per day to outlive. On account of this excessive quantity, scientists have typically assumed that the megalodon’s predominant supply of energy got here from whales.

This new research means that whales weren’t the one merchandise on the megalodon’s each day menu and that these sharks had been truly fairly adaptable when it got here to their meals. The analysis workforce analyzed 18-million-year-old big tooth that got here from two fossil deposits in Sigmaringen and Passau. What they had been searching for was the presence of zinc-66 and zinc-64, two isotopes generally ingested with meals.

Sometimes, the upper up in a meals pyramid an animal is, the decrease the presence of zinc. As they’re oftentimes on the prime of the meals chain, species equivalent to Otodus megalodon and Otodus chubutensis have a low ratio of zinc-66 to zinc-64 in comparison with species decrease on the meals chain.

“Sea bream, which consumed mussels, snails, and crustaceans, fashioned the bottom stage of the meals chain we studied,” mentioned McCormack within the press launch. “Smaller shark species equivalent to requiem sharks and ancestors of in the present day’s cetaceans, dolphins, and whales, had been subsequent. Bigger sharks, equivalent to sand tiger sharks, had been additional up the meals pyramid, and on the prime had been big sharks like Araloselachus cuspidatus and the Otodus sharks, which embrace megalodon.”

Surprisingly, the zinc ranges within the megalodon tooth weren’t all the time that totally different from the zinc ranges in species decrease down the meals chain. This end result implies that the generally held scientific perception that megalodons centered their consideration on consuming massive marine mammals could also be incorrect. 

As an alternative, McCormack refers back to the megalodon as an “ecologically versatile generalist” that tailored to environmental and regional constraints that modified the provision and number of their prey.

A New Technique in Tooth Testing

Utilizing the zinc content material of fossilized tooth is a comparatively new technique of study, and the analysis workforce engaged on the megalodon couldn’t be happier with their outcomes. The strategies used on this research haven’t solely been used for prehistoric shark and whale species but additionally modern-day shark species, and have even been used on herbivorous prehistoric rhinoceroses.

Total, these new strategies have begun to rewrite the historical past of megalodon’s consuming habits and will assist to elucidate extra about why these giants of the meals chain went extinct. 

“[Determining zinc isotope ratios] provides us vital insights into how the marine communities have modified over geologic time, however extra importantly the truth that even ‘supercarnivores’ aren’t resistant to extinction,” mentioned Kenshu Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul College and a coauthor of this research, within the press launch.

Learn Extra: The Large Megalodon Shark Was No Chilly-Blood Killer

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed research and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors overview for scientific accuracy and editorial requirements. Evaluation the sources used beneath for this text:

• Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Miocene marine vertebrate trophic ecology reveals megatooth sharks as opportunistic supercarnivores

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