The world's oldest shark - Megalodon

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Carcharodon megalodon shark Megalodon, or (pictured below) - the world's oldest shark, which can be called a fish-monster.Externally, it is likely to be very similar to the great white shark.But its huge size not leave anyone indifferent, and hardly anyone wants to meet these terrible creatures of nature.

worldwide are her teeth, and this suggests that the prevalence of some shark Megalodon had in the past.Her teeth reach 15-18 cm, for comparison - the largest modern tooth shark has a length of 6 cm. Under assumptions of scientists, the ancient fish had a length of 30 meters and can weigh 60-100 tons.Her jaw width reached 2.7 m in height - 2.1 m. But the foundation of the diet were sperm whales and whales.

Of course, there is reason to assume that the Megalodon shark took in the vast ocean top of the food chain and kept at bay the rest of the inhabitants of the marine world.It is believed that it prevailed in the ocean waters 50 million years.It happened in the middle and late Tertiary.But there are suggestions that recent Megalodon became extinct by the standards of paleontologists does "recently", only some 10 thousand years ago in the early Holocene or Late Pleistocene.

Shark Megalodon became extinct due to the cooling of the oceans, which came rather abruptly.Because of this, cetaceans moved into the cold, deeper waters in search of plankton.But in these circumstances I could not survive Megalodon, a large shark needed in coastal warm waters.And killer whales have caused great damage to its population, young sharks were their favorite object of hunting.

cryptozoology suggest that Megalodon shark could survive to our time.After all, in the geological scale of this monster extinct recently.And when you consider the fact that the ocean has been studied only in 10%, and recorded a lot of facts that still find fish and mammals that have long been thought to be extinct.For example, the coelacanth (Crossopterygii fish), according to scientists, became extinct 60 million years ago.However, in the last century it was found off the coast of Japan.Whale shark discovered in 1828, the goblin shark was found in 1897.A megamouth shark just by chance was discovered in 1976.And then it is not seen over 25 times.Maybe Megalodon shark somewhere crisscrossing the deep waters of the ocean?

In 1918, Australian ichthyologist David Stead investigated one incident.At that time he worked as a senior manager of a company on fishing catching.In the port of "Stevenson" more than a week fishermen went to fish lobsters.They flatly refused to go on the water near the island of Bruton.This is explained by the fact that there have seen a shark of gigantic proportions.Her divers noticed that once again plunged into a trap for lobsters.They are terrified surfaced to take refuge on the deck of the trawler.A shark, meanwhile, slowly swallowed all the traps, and, together with the cables, keep them on the bottom.A weight of each container with crayfish was not less than 35 kg.Each catcher questioned in detail, and all of them claimed that the size of the monster was more than 30 meters.David Stead was confident that the fishermen could not be mistaken as the local whales and sharks, they knew very well.Their only means of livelihood was the work week, and a simple, greatly reduced income, says a lot.Perhaps they really could not overcome their terror gripped by a sudden meeting with the giant Megalodon shark.