Megalodon: Myth or Real?

VMNH_megalodon

Since all my blogs have been about realistic situations, I decided to make this last blog a little more interesting and ask one of those fun science questions. If you have participated in shark week, a week long television special on discovery channel about sharks, then you have probably heard about Megalodon. Megalodon is an ancient species of shark that lived around 2.6 million years ago. The interesting thing about this supposedly extinct shark is that they could grow to 60 feet. To put that into retrospect, a average length of a regular shark is 11 to 13 feet. There is concrete proof that this ancient shark existed, but could it be possible that is is still alive to this day?

2000px-Megalodon_scale.svg-1

Many of you probably think that its impossible for this shark to exist. I mean if it were really that big, then shouldn’t we have seen it by now? But when you think about 95% of the ocean being undiscovered, it is kind of impossible to dismiss this possibility.

The real evidence that megalodon existed was the fossil remains of the shark, specifically the teeth. There has never been a scientific recording of the species, as most scientists believe it has gone extinct 2 million years ago. to read more about the history of megalodon, you can read this article here.

There is some potential real evidence of megalodon still existing. In Australia, a research team tagged a nine foot great white shark. Four months after the great white shark was tagged, the researches found the tag washed up on the beach. When they analyzed the data from the tagger, they found a temperature rise and a sudden 1,900 foot drop in depth. The only realistic explanation was that the shark was eat by something and the tracking device was digested and washed up on the shore. You can read more about this possible real evidence here.

On the other side of the argument, many scientists have concluded that the ancient species megalodon does not exist. Discovery channel made a mocumentary about megalodon, and when it was proven that the tv special was fake, many people were in uproar at discovery channel. Scientists have an explanation for almost every megalodon theory, but does this mean that it is really extinct? Comment on this post and tell me what you think!

3 thoughts on “Megalodon: Myth or Real?

  1. Aubree Sylvia Rader

    I take the existence of the megalodon almost as seriously as I take the movie Sharknado, which is not serious at all. Discovery Channel lost all credibility when they made the fake documentary, which is completely understandable. This was not the first time Discovery Channel was caught running a fake t.v. special. The same scenario occurred when Discovery Channel premiered a believable special on mermaids. You can read about the hoax on http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333515/Mermaid-hoax-How-mockumentary-gave-Animal-Planet-biggest-audience-EVER.html. If megalodon did still live today, what predators would it have? I would have to read more information and see more evidence on the species before I would consider the megalodon to still be alive today.

  2. Cassidy Paige Heiserman

    I LOVE shark week; I look forward to it every year. I always found their episodes on the megalodon particularly interesting. I think that it is terrifying to know that something that big could still be out there! In my opinion, I believe that it is highly possible that megalodons still exist. Marine biologists do now know what caused the species to go extinct, and therefore I think they may still be out there. An overwhelming majority of our oceans have been untouched and undiscovered, and there is no evidence refuting the existence of megalodon sharks today. Maybe within the next hundred years we will learn more about the species, and if it still exists or not. All I know is that if megalodons still do lurk in the ocean, I would have a hard time ever going swimming again!

Comments are closed.