Top Facts About The Megalodon Shark Tooth Fossil Lovers

The name megalodon has been derived from the Greek name, which means giant tooth. Megalodon is one of the extant, the largest fish that ever lived. It had the structure of today's great white sharks. It was also the ocean's apex predator due to its huge size. A real megalodon tooth was about three times more than a shark's teeth.

 

Body and structure –

 

As already mentioned, the megalodon had the structure of a shark, only bigger. Scientists studied that megalodons can weigh from 66,000 pounds to about 143,000 pounds. It has a mean length of about 10.2 cm. 

 

A megalodon tooth is the same as that of a shark in physical geometry. It is symmetrical, triangular, and serrated. In addition, these teeth contain a darker, chevron-shaped region near their root. It measures around 17.8 cm, three times the modern shark width. So it's not a surprise why the megalodon was called the ocean's apex predator. Though megalodon has become extinct, it is interesting that the dinosaurs and megalodons never co-existed. 

 

Territoriality –

 

 Juvenile teeth characterized a recent identification of megalodon nursery along the Panamanian coast from different stages of a Megalodon's life. Scientists state that the shallow warm-water nursery paved the way for young megalodons to access a diverse array of smaller prey and exercised adults to better any upcoming intercept attacks from other predatory species. However, it wasn't the only predatory shark species, and the other notifiable one was a hammerhead shark.

 

Prey –

 

Megalodon always remained at the top of its chain during its time. No wonder a megalodon tooth for sale has such dynamic characteristics. It preyed upon small fishes, smaller whales, toothed whales (such as modern sperm whales, dolphins), sirenians (dugongs, manatees), and seals. The young were taught to seek out smaller prey, while adults decapitated the larger whales.

 

 The mature megalodons did not have any sharks or predators above them in the food chain. Still, sometimes the newly birthed, outcasted juvenile individuals might have been a good prey option for some other predatory sharks such as hammerhead sharks. It has been said in certain paleontology articles that the ranges of the above said predators have sometimes overlapped, resulting in a conflict between the territorial ranges. It was seen from the end of the Miocene and throughout the Pliocene.  

 

To sum it up – 

 

• Megalodon was believed to grow about 60 feet long, three times that of a modern shark.
• Megalodon preyed upon whales, dolphins, killer whales, manatees, toothed whales.
• Megalodon had the most ferocious bite of any species ever to live. 
• Megalodon's teeth were about three times the modern whale, about 7 inches long. Just check it up on the Megalodon tooth sale in North Carolina.
• Megalodon bites off the fins and sometimes the gills of the prey.
• Today the closest resembling creature to a megalodon is the Great White Shark.
• There has no certified proof as to why megalodons went extinct.