>Lost megalodon vertebrae resurface, confirming 80-foot size estimatehttps://phys.org/news/2026-06-lost-megalodon-vertebrae-resurface-foot.html
>>5138915I thought this was already established
>>5138952It was, but I just found a megalodon vertebrae that suggests they were actually only 12 inches long and buried themselves with whale spines to confuse people.
>>5138952It was speculation based on old vertebrae that were actually lost, but due to the recent paper they actually decided to look for them and they were found in some boxes.Paleontology is a bit of a joke if thats how they handle their precious fossils, I mean it just keeps happening. There's so many speciments lost in storage that people still haven't found and arent actively looking for.
>>5138915>shark gets big to eat whales>whales get bigger to not get eaten>shark gets bigger to eat whalesIn hindsight, is it that surprising? Predator-prey arms races happen all the time, and there's no reason megalodon wouldn't get bigger to match the prey it evolved with.
>>5138952>The study suggests that this particular megalodon was a little over 24 m long, an estimate that had already been suggested before based on photographs of the then lost specimen; the scary part is that the authors consider they may have grown even bigger, up to c. 28 m, which would place them in the same size range as the largest whales today, and as some of the largest ichthyosaurs known. We've only just begun
>>5138915>"paleontologists always nerf things!" motherfuckers when otodus megalodon brings his 28 meter ass into the room
>>5139249>only the animals that became spielberg movie stars keep getting buffedhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
>>5139220>predator wins predator-prey arms race>dies
>>5139249There are some saying that the previous measurements were scaled wrong. They claim that measuring the side from front to back is more accurate than measuring the front across.
>>5139311Which Spielberg movie had a megalodon in it?
>>5139229So basically it's to a blue whale what a great white is to an elephant seal. Insane.
>>5139358The whales it ate are extinct too.
>>5139432kek
>>5138915I like how it didn’t even change weight, it just got stretched in microsoft paint
>>5139433Most of the whales around today were around while megalodon was still alive
>>5139418The Jurassic World producers will give you megalodon in the next movie if only you feed them a little bit more glue.
>>5139477>Jurassic World Vengeance>Focuses on a research vessel sailing to Isla Nublar or wherever and how they're consistently pursued by Tylosaurus, Icthyotitan and the most fearsome dinosaur of all, the Megalodon>The Climax of the film the crew are attacked from above by a swarm of Hatzegopteryx while their boat is nearly capsized by the Megalodon and Tylosaurus attacking from below>Just as all hope seems to be lost a Nanaimoteuthis attacks the Megalodon, dragging it down to the depths, scarring away the Tylosaurus and allowing the protagonists to fight off the Hatzegopteryx>Shortly after they arrive on the island or wherever and we get a scene of them gazing upon the majesty of the Dimetrodons that live there>It makes a billion dollars despite not having any dinosaurs or anything that lived in the Jurassic
>>5139311>Velociraptor >Spinosaurus>Buffed
>>5138915
>>5138915>>5138917>>5139572Too long. Doesn’t have the beefy, threatening presence of a great white. This giant eel was almost certainly sluggish and cumbersome asf like a whale or basking shark and fed on carcasses 99% of the time.In awe at the girth of some of these lads.
So basically the T-rex of the sea with all that yearly size estimates
>>5139220aint there like a limit to how much oxygen can be absorbed through gills?
>>5139690Nature finds a way
>>5139448The weight estimate is weirdly low for a shark that size because they arbitrarily chose a lemon shark as the template. Among the suitable templates of the correct family would have suggested a nose to tail length in excess of 30 meters. The lemonshark body plan was one of the more conservative choices.The reason being that some sharks have longer/bigger heads and tail than others. So why chose the lemon shark? Because whalefaggotry makes any size estimate approaching blue whale sizes be viewed as heresy. The 23cm vertebrae could very well have belonged to a 27+ meter long 150+ ton shark. However, it is exceedingly unlikely that the Danish vertebrae belonged to a record breaking specimen. Which when combined with the less known and controversial fact that not all blue whales are actually 30+ meter 180+ tons (crazy huh? wonder why everyone knows an Elephant is 6 tons but think blue whales are all 150+ tons) makes a shark the same size as a blue whale.Anyway, since whales cannot not be biggest, expect more schizo copes like >>5139415
>>5139654The fat ones are pregnant females.
>>5139975>Among the suitable templates of the correct family would have suggested a nose to tail length in excess of 30 metersDamn, I should stop making replies while listening to something else while having conversations at the same time. That made no sense.Meant to say>Some of the possible templates of the correct family with bigger heads/tails than the lemonshark template would suggest a length in excess of 30 meters for the Danish specimen.
>>5139978What's the correct family?
>>5139975Can you try saying this again without the schizobabble?
>>5139477Megalodon park would be a better movie than whatever slop they’re putting out now
>>5139975>>5139978They didn’t just choose a lemon shark as the reference, the paper lists multiple weights for different models. The size of the head and tail has hardly any influence on the weight estimates so I’m not sure how that’s really relevant
>>5140116Indeed they did, which one stuck though?
>>5140124The average of the weight estimates is the one that stuck
>>5140262Not what we're talking about. Each of the different body plan possibilities had its own ranges of length and mass.
>>5140389That is literally what we’re talking about
>>5139654The great white shark is a joke compared to O. megalodon, seriously. Nothing can be more imposing and menacing than a 24+ meters long macropredatory shark. You would literally piss and shit yourself if you witnessed O. megalodon in real life. If it was still around today it would attack small boats instead of surfers.
new scientifically accurate megalodon size estimate
>>5140537the world shark…
>>5140506Not getting it, the length and weight estimates that stuck were the average for the lemon shark body plan. The others had their own ranges, min. max and average for weight and length.
>>5140622>the length and weight estimates that stuck were the average for the lemon shark body planNo they aren’t. The most frequently referenced 94 tonne weight estimate is the average for all three different body types. The 24 meter length estimate is just from scaling up the vertebral column to match the 23 cm vertebra
>>5140652Read the paper again then. Some body plans give lengths in excess of 30 meters, due to some related sharks having much longer heads/tails. Which, since the size is estimated off the 11 meter long vertebral column require some guesstimates on the total length since we do not know the size of the Meg's head/tail in relation to its spinal column. Among the body types proposed, the lemon shark represents a sort of middle ground. But there is no actual reason to pick it over the others. Just so happens that lemon sharks are rather light for their size when compared to, say a sand tiger shark, whose body plan could also be used.In any case, each of the proposed body plans has their own sizes, and naturally, their own weight calculations. The authors just landed on the lemon shark bodyplan, and gave min, avg and max weight and lengths base off it. Mostly weight, since length would be more or less the same due to the method of scaling off the 11 meter column + 23cm centra. All this to say, the lemon shark body plan is among the more conservative, weight and length wise of the possible options.
>>5140725>Read the paper again then. Some body plans give lengths in excess of 30 meters, due to some related sharks having much longer heads/tailsThe paper literally states that those estimates are not realistic for good reason. The 34.6 metre estimate for example is based on the head proportions of Apristurus and tail proportions of Paraorthacodus. The first is a 2 ft long bottom dweller that eats worms and the second is a 4 ft long eel-tailed piscivore. How the fuck do you think an estimate based on those is in any way reasonable? Those head and tail proportions make no sense for a bus sized pelagic macropredator. Neither are related to megalodon either, they’re in entirely separate orders. The old scaled up great white would be more accurate>Among the body types proposed, the lemon shark represents a sort of middle ground. But there is no actual reason to pick it over the others. Just so happens that lemon sharks are rather light for their size when compared to, say a sand tiger shark, whose body plan could also be usedAgain the 94 tonne weight is the average of three species with different body plans. They didn’t just pick the lemon shark and stick with it. But apparently we should be using deep water cat sharks as a reference instead
>>5140725Behold, the new megalodon
no no NO NO livyatansisters NOT LIKE THIS
>>5140524Looking at this compared to the whale shark it doesn't look all that preposterous
People go "it was thinner than previously thought not a le heckin chonker like great whites" but if you look up actual great white pics they can look pretty slender already, especially the males
So remember this shit which was peddled on sites like CNN and popsci outlets as the "definitive" size estimates for megalodon and all that, it's just totally out the window now?
>>5143145Why was it reconstructed as fat for a while? was it the usual paleofags making shit up or was it based on something?
>>5143147Pretty sure it's because people wanted to be contrarian.>Oooh look at me, everyone reconstructs Megalodon as a big great white so here's a nonsensical reconstruction! I'm so controversial and brave!even though Megaldon's family history would've had it looking like its closest relatives, the lamnids, regardless.
>>5143147Concepts such as "drag" and "hydrodynamics" were problematic
>>5143147Bull sharks iirc
>>5143147It was based on great white sharks. The largest females gws have a thick and rounded body, so if the megalodon is a close relative to the gws it must looks exactly like one! Most paleoartists don't know anything about sharks so they just copied each other without researching the subject.I have no idea why it took them so long to realise that it was streamlined, literally all the largest extant marine animals have a slender and long body.
>>5144145>literally all the largest extant marine animals have a slender and long bodyThree out of the top five largest whales are fat and stubby
>>5138915>Lost megalodon vertebrae resurface, confirming 80-foot size estimateI just looked at the vertebrae an using my calculations it was only 17 inches long.
>>5139091nothing is, we lost the code to get to the moon and the original tapes of the moonlanding, nuke launch codes are held on floppy disks, nukes were locked with bike locks, youd be baffled by the sheer lack of autism in field that should be held by autists in their attempts to secure things that should be secured
>>5143147>Why was it reconstructed as fat for a while?Paleontologists love to project.>>5143155>Pretty sure it's because people wanted to be contrarian.Peak contrarian as far as Megalodon goes had to have been around 10-15 years or so (also the peak of feathered T-rex and carnivorous ceratopsians, probably not coincidentally) when they suddenly started portraying it as a fat sand tiger because...well...who's to say it WASN'T??
They're still out there
>>5144414It isn't over yet, some artists now portray megalodon as a carcharhiniform because they took the lemon shark analogy literally.
>>5144145>It was based on great white sharksIf anything, paleoart back then was claiming that megalodon was NOTHING like great white sharks. "This isn't your average shark! It was big and weird with a blunt snout and a round blimp-shaped body! Why? because it's different and unique, just like my blue hair."Gradually we're now seeing that the comparison to a great white is probably closer to reality than whatever this was.
>>5144508Have another one that was often bandied about
