Megalodon vs great white: New clues to demise of world’s largest shark

An evaluation of zinc isotopes in ancient shark enamel suggests megalodon and good whites ate the same foods, possibly contributing to megalodon’s mysterious extinction

By Corryn Wetzel

A prehistoric foods combat may well help demonstrate the mysterious disappearance of megalodon, the world’s largest shark. It may have identified itself in a dropping fight for prey with fantastic whites, suggests an investigation of zinc in historic tooth enamel of both equally styles of shark.

It has been an believed 3.5 million decades considering the fact that the very last megalodon died, but the cause for the big carnivore’s demise remains a mystery. Previous investigation implies megalodon may well have struggled to come across plenty of food to meet up with their large urge for food, and Kenshu Shimada at DePaul University, Illinois, and his colleagues ended up keen to locate out far more about the giant fish’s location in the foodstuff chain.

Megalodon’s about 15-metre-prolonged human body contained a skeleton manufactured of cartilage – which doesn’t fossilise very well – so researchers are remaining with the animals’ palm-sized teeth for clues about how it lived.

“My collaborators and I required to see if we could decipher the eating plan of megalodon and other extinct sharks, like the prehistoric wonderful white shark, using zinc isotopes preserved in fossilised tooth,” says Shimada.

This is the first time experts have made use of zinc isotope analysis on shark teeth, but the technique “has been identified to be a potent software to decipher the relative positions in the food items chain between varied species”, suggests Shimada.

Utilizing a dental drill to obtain tooth enamel, the team sampled 20 living shark species and 13 extinct species which include megalodon. They then as opposed the varying ranges of zinc trapped in the 262 particular person tooth. Zinc is important for animal existence and is primarily sourced from eating plan – with the actual harmony of zinc isotopes in the eating plan, and that’s why tooth enamel, indicative of the style of food items an animal has eaten.

The scientists located that the zinc isotope ratio in megalodon’s sample intently matched that of historic fantastic white sharks. For the reason that both species experienced low ranges of zinc in their tooth enamel, they in all probability shared a comparable apex predator placement all through the early Pliocene, about 5 million decades ago, when the two co-existed.

Shimada notes that past evidence of fossilised bite marks points to the truth that fantastic whites and megalodon likely shared a eating plan of compact whales, seals and sea lions. Although there may possibly have been several explanations for megalodon’s extinction, Shimada states he is “very excited” to see that their study gives more proof that competition for meals with excellent whites was a variable.

Journal reference: Mother nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30528-9

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