Megalodon probably exists

My rant is simply this. A thought came to me. How can scientists say something like "The megalodon is extinct." More than eighty percent of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. That's a hell of an area. This according to the US government. oceanservice.noaa.gov...


End of rant.

a reply to: drz400

How can scientists say something like "The megalodon is extinct."

Because of the odds in Vegas.

originally posted by: drz400
My rant is simply this. A thought came to me. How can scientists say something like "The megalodon is extinct." More than eighty percent of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. That's a hell of an area. This according to the US government. oceanservice.noaa.gov...


End of rant.

Due to fossil records of this shark ending over 3 million years ago and a shift in natural habitat from that time period, it is an acceptable hypothesis.

However:
If we look at the Coelacanth, or Crocodilia we can make a case to say we do not know.
Which honestly should be the the statement, from a scientific view point.

Sources (all Wikipedia):
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I think I have said enough.

a reply to: drz400

he 80% unexplored oceans = a disengenuous argument

shark habitat is predomenintly in the best stuidied upper layer of the oceans

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: drz400

he 80% unexplored oceans = a disengenuous argument

shark habitat is predomenintly in the best stuidied upper layer of the oceans

For known sharks agreed. But we cannot discount the possibility.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: drz400

shark habitat is predomenintly in the best stuidied upper layer of the oceans

Yes but not entirely.
There are quite a few species of sharks that dwell in the deep. Here are 7 deep water sharks to get you started.

Given all we know the odds are pretty good that the Megalodon is gone for good but in the grand scheme of things there is a lot we don't know for sure.

I think it's gone sadly. But that sure is a lot of water to hide in.

I'd think this was plausible if they evolved to get smaller and smaller.

Then, if they remained deep depth sharks, they could be misidentified, even now.


However, no evidence of that scenario afaik.

3 million years is a long time, for an animal that makes a new set of teeth every week.
We should have seen younger tooth specimens. Sharks practically poop teeth.

a reply to: drz400

Hey buddy...

*sits down in a chair backwards so you know I'm hip, I'm on your level, so, although you normally look up to me as an authority figure or a role model, my pose let's you know that I'm speaking to you in a decidedly more casual context compared to our usual interactions when the rest of the gang is around*

I know how you feel. I wish megalodon was here, too. I've sat up many nights thinking about it. And then, one day, pretty close to your age, actually, I realized, I had to let megalodon go... Now, there there, don't cry. Let's not be sad that hes gone, but instead, just be happy as heck that he existed! Whaddaya say champ? Wanna get ice cream? We can go crazy and get TWO scoops, huh, wouldn't that be somethin?

originally posted by: drz400
My rant is simply this. A thought came to me. How can scientists say something like "The megalodon is extinct." More than eighty percent of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. That's a hell of an area. This according to the US government. oceanservice.noaa.gov...


End of rant.

Since megalodon teeth are found in the shallow water rivers of South Carolina I venture to say it was an inshore shark and not the deep dweller some of you think. I believe that there is no evidence that they survive. What ever caused gigantism of fish and land animals of the past appears to have faded from our Earth.
Besides, isn’t the Great White monster enough?

a reply to: 3n19m470

Points for creativity.

That was a strange ride I just went on.

If something that large was still roaming the oceans eating whales, we'd have seen evidence of it more recently than we have, solid evidence.

The idea of a megalodon is intriguing but extremely unlikely, not as the giant shark of prehistoric times.

If megs exist, we know them Carcharodon carcharias, a creature better suited to the oceans and climates of today, but every bit as impressive in this scale.

The wooly mammoth still exists, he and I were in Vegas last week.

originally posted by: drz400

More than eighty percent of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. That's a hell of an area. This according to the US government. oceanservice.noaa.gov...


End of rant.

There are some different opinions on the percentage. As per world atlas, only 5% has been explored which leaves 95% of the oceans unexplored. www.worldatlas.com...

a reply to: drz400

a reply to: drz400

Here are just a few thoughts that come to my mind:

1. Fossil record. Although incomplete, there's a worldwide decline of fossilized meg teeth observable in the fossil record already beginning in the Miocene period and also coinciding with the decline of 1/3 of large marine fauna including various whale species meg fed on at the end of the Pliocene.

2. The detailed mapping of the ocean floor has no relevance to megalodon's existence. Moreover, the ocean is in constant change. When could one really declare an area as "explored". One thing is for sure, a predator of this size would need a lot of food and would also be observable where its food source is, whilst hunting it. With regards to megalodon that would be marine mammals, most of which spend most of their time in the upper zones of the ocean. We'd also expect to at least observe juvenile megs grow up in coastal nursery areas, similar to the white shark of today.

3. No credible sighting of a large macro-predatory shark is known to date. The few sightings of large unknown shark species, popularly attributed to megalodon, are sketchy at best and useless at worst.

4. No carcass or other fresh remains (e.g. a single fresh tooth) is known. One would think that at least the odd juvenile would be attacked by orcas or at least one fresh tooth would have been found by now. The reports of "recent" 10.000 year old teeth are false.

5. No carcass of bitten prey that could be attributed to megalodon. We'd expect one or two whales or elephant seals to turn up with large bite marks not attributable to white sharks.

6. 70% of the ocean is probably inhospitable for sharks (abyssal and hadopelagic zones), Apart from various problems (e.g. cartilage skeleton), there's no food source to sustain a population of megs at those depths.

Moreover, white shark are known to dive over 1000m deep, so what is keeping meg from showing up such depths? There's no reason to assume megs are true mega-deep-sea sharks in any true sense of the word, except for one: To have a convenient excuse as to why we are not observing these apex predators of the past, when we should have no problem whatsoever should they still exist.

7. Extinction is nothing new, nor uncommon. Why should megalodon be exceptional? The way some meg-possibly-lives advocates argue, one would think extinction is such an absurd and rare circumstance - it isn't. Many claim meg had to adapt to survive, which just proves all the more they were under threat of extinction. If they have changed so much over time that we wouldn't even recognize them as megalodons anymore, they'd still be "extinct" as a species.


8. Lack of good reasons/arguments for their existence, (whilst mostly ignoring what we do know or can infer from the fossil data at hand about the animal in question.) It is not enough to look at what is possible and what we don't know. We should be taking into account what is probable and what we already do know. Meg-possibly-lives-advocates need to deal with the arguments and numerous scientific papers at hand, instead of simply appealing to the lack of knowledge and pure speculation. By reading what scientists actually are saying about megalodons perhaps we can start undrerstanding how scientists can say something like "The megalodon is extinct." in the first place.

a reply to: drz400

It seems like every year we hear that some previously thought to be extinct species is found to still be around even though evidence of it's existence has been absent for hundreds or even thousands of years. I say to you do not give up hope- for who knows what thrives in the icy, unexplored depths where no human may go?

a reply to: drz400

If they existed today, they would need to eat a huge amount of food. So they would have to hunt around the beaches just to get enough food. And then they would be sighted Or wash up on some beach because of death by disease. And there would have to be a big enough population for breeding. With all the pollution in the ocean and all the over commercial fishing we do there's probably not enough food.

I think it's very unlikely but as the OP says a lot of the ocean has never been explored.

The Megalodon is probably extinct, evolving into sharks we have today. I would bet there are many creatures in the seas we do not know are out there and it is possible that that a relatedshark does still exist somewhere. They found a shark down in South America similar to the Mega shark, but it does not get big anymore from what I read. But how do they know, they only found one smaller one, maybe it was just a kid.

I doubt if the mega shark just died off, evolution probably altered it from the old form.