Megalodon Facts

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See also:

• Stegosaurus Facts
• Velociraptor Facts
• Albertosaurus Facts
• Triceratops Facts
• Allosaurus Facts

Below are some of the facts about Megalodon:

• The scientific name of this shark is Carcharocles Megalodon and the term 'megalodon' is derived from Greek that means Giant tooth.
• It was giant shark that could be of length 60 to 70 feet. It weighed more than 60 tons. It is believed to the largest predator on Earth. It is about 3 times larger than the largest shark, white shark that lives presently.
• To maintain its size it ate about 2,500 pounds of food every day.
• They could generate heat while they swim and thus although they were fish but they were not cold blooded. They were partially warm blooded like the present day white shark.
• The size of the female Megalodon were double the size of their male counterparts. Even the size of an infant Megalodon was huge about 6.6 inches from their tail to nose.
• It was carnivore that preyed upon different animals available in the ocean. They ate whales, fishes, dolphins, seals and any other marine animals.
• There are questions that whether dinosaurs and Megalodon co-existed? They both are now extinct from Earth but there are no traces that shows that they co-existed. Megalodon came after the Dinosaurs become extinct about 66 million years ago.
• The oldest fossils of Megalodon are found in Miocene Epoch and they are believed to be of 23 million years ago.
• Other than Antarctica, the fossils of a Megalodon are found at the coats of every continent.
• Sharks do not have bones and thus whatever is found about the shark is from its big tooth.
• The largest tooth of Megalodon found till is about 6.9 inches in length.
• They had about 10 feet wide mouth and that shows that they must be able to eat quite large sea animals including whales.
• It is believed that the Megalodon were there on earth until 2.6 million years ago. During that period there was a change in climate on Earth and the extreme pressure of this change didn’t helped the Megalodon to survive any more.
• The Megalodon used to have nursery for their young ones. This is revealed by the fact at places like the Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, Bone Valley Region of Florida and the Gatum Formation of Panama there are high concentration of small teeth of Megalodon.
• As the teeth of the Megalodon worn out they used to discard them.
• The Megalodon had 5 rows of teeth that consisted of about 276 teeth.