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Megalodon. Otodus megalodon (/ ˈmɛɡələdɒn / MEG-əl-ə-don; meaning "big tooth"), commonly known as megalodon, is an extinct species of giant mackerel shark that lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago (Mya), from the Early Miocene to the Early Pliocene epochs.
The extinction was biased toward larger-sized species because smaller species have greater resilience because of their life history traits (e.g., shorter gestation time, greater population sizes, etc.). Humans are thought to be the cause because other earlier immigrations of mammals into North America from Eurasia did not cause extinctions. [212]
In South America, the related phorusrhacids shared the dominant predatory niches with metatherian sparassodonts during most of the Cenozoic but declined and ultimately went extinct after eutherian predators arrived from North America (as part of the Great American Interchange) during the Pliocene. In contrast, large herbivorous flightless ...
A new study finds that megatooth sharks’ warm-blood adaptation and giant size may have played a role in their extinction. Scientists find new clue in what led to megalodon’s demise Skip to ...
"The megalodon shark was the apex predator in the water," Bischoff said. Many other fish swam alongside these giant hunters. The bone beds also included an extinct saber-tooth salmon.
August 19. (2007-08-19) –. November 7, 2007. (2007-11-07) Prehistoric Predators is a 2007 National Geographic Channel program based on different predators that lived in the Cenozoic era, including Smilodon and C. megalodon. The series investigated how such beasts hunted and fought other creatures, and what drove them to extinction.
Marine mammals likely constituted a big part of megalodon's menu, so with it gone, they were free to thrive. Observations indicate that in the years since the mega-shark's extinction, baleen ...
Otodontidae is an extinct family of sharks belonging to the order Lamniformes. Its members have been described as megatoothed sharks. [1][2] They lived from the Early Cretaceous to the Pliocene, and included genera such as Otodus, including the giant megalodon. [3] Recent studies of the newly described genus Megalolamna indicate that the ...