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originally posted by: Snaffers
Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz gave this prehistoric shark its scientific name, meaning “ bigtooth,” in 1835. Based on similarities between its teeth and those of the great white shark,Agassiz classified them as relatives, but some modern ichthyologists dispute that claim. Re-construction of the shark ’s jaw in 1909, using the largest teeth available, produced a 120-ft.monster, but subsequent estimates range from 50 to 80 ft long. In either case, and by anyname, megalodon remains the largest shark known to science.Is it still alive?Most ichthyologists believe megalodon died out around 1.5 million years ago, but fossilevidence suggests that they are wrong. The British research ship Challenger dredged up two megalodon teeth from the Atlantic, at a depth of 14,000 feet, in 1875. Dr. WladomirTschernezky analyzed the teeth at London’s Queen Mary College in 1959, and reportedthat one was 24,000 years old and the other no more than 11,000 years old. His findingslend credence to several reports of giant sharks resembling great whites recorded duringthe 20th century.• 1918: Australian fishermen reported an encounter with a monstrous shark nearBroughton Island, off the coast of New South Wales. The shark swallowed several 3-ft.-wide crayfish traps with “ pots, mooring lines, and all.” Estimates of its length ex-ceeded 100 feet, perhaps exaggerated by fear. All agreed that the beast was a shark“of the White Death type,” and not a whale.• 1927: American novelist Zane Gray saw a shark longer than his 40-ft. boat while fish-ing off the Polynesian island of Rangiroa.• 1933: Gray ’s son, Loren, saw a nearly-identical shark while sailing 100 miles north-west of Rangiroa. He described it as 40 to 50 ft. long, with a head 10 to 12 ft. wide, andinsisted that it was not a whale shark.• 1950s: Author Thomas Helm watched a large shark resembling a great white swimunder his 60-ft. boat in the Gulf of Mexico. Helm said that the fish “ was not an inchless than 30 feet ” long, and that when it was under the fishing boat, its pectoral finsprotruded on either side.• March 1954: While riding out a storm near Timor, Indonesia, sailors aboard the RachelCohen felt a violent blow against the keel. They later found 17 shark ’s teeth embeded in the hull, averaging 4 in. long and 3 in. wide. Ichthyologist John Randall, atHawaii’s Bishop Museum, estimated the shark must have been 36 - 46 ft. long.While no megalodon has yet been killed or caught alive, the species enjoys a measureof celebrity through horror novels and films. Novels involving relict megalodons in-clude Charles Wilson’s Extinct (1997), Cari McKnight ’s From the Dark Below (2001), and awhole series from author Steve Alten: Meg (1997), The Trench (2000), Meg: Primal Waters (2004), and Meg: Hell ’s Aquarium (2008). Films depicting megalodons at large include Shark Hunter (2001), Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002), Megalodon (2004), and the Aus-trian production Hai-Alarm auf Mallorca (2004). Further Reading: Renz, M. Megalodon: Hunting the Hunter. ( Lehigh Acres, FL: Paleo Press,2002)
There was something very fishy about that claim here ---->
"The British research ship Challenger dredged up two megalodon teeth from the Atlantic, at a depth of 14,000 feet, in 1875. Dr. WladomirTschernezky analyzed the teeth at London’s Queen Mary College in 1959, and reportedthat one was 24,000 years old and the other no more than 11,000 years old."
Cannot remember what exactly it was...
Source: Hidden Animals A Filed Guide
1st: The Science ------>
2nd: The Fun ------>
3rd: Some Great Vids ------>
PS: Who knows what is hiding in the deep? :p