A new study has suggested that megalodons have been larger than we first thought, growing up to 80 feet (24.3 metres) long which is 15 feet (4.5m) longer than previous predictions.
The researchers said that these massive sharks may also have been more slender than originally believed, reported Live Science.
“Previous estimates using teeth to predict its size had the shark reaching about 18-20 metres total length (59-65 feet),” study co-author Phillip Sternes, an educator at SeaWorld San Diego, told Live Science.
Between around 20 million and 3.6 million years ago, Megalodon ruled the seas of ancient Earth.
As no complete megalodon (Otodus megalodon) skeletons have ever been found, so our knowledge of these behemoths comes from fossils of their vertebrae scales and teeth.
It is worth noting that the largest megalodon fossil ever found is a 36-foot-long (11m) section of its spine, which would have been located in the trunk of its body.
To build a better picture of just how big this giant shark was, researchers examined megalodon fossils and compared them with more than 150 living and extinct shark species in the new study, which was published on Sunday in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica.
With the trunks of 145 modern and 20 extinct shark species, the researchers compared the proportions of the megalodon’s trunk.
Additionally, assuming that the megalodon was roughly proportional to the majority of other shark species, and extrapolating from the 36-foot (11m) trunk section, the researchers estimated that this individual may have had a 6-foot-long (1.8m) head and 12-foot-long (3.6m) tail, giving it a total length of 54 feet (16.4 metres).
It was also found by the researchers that the megalodon may have given birth to live young measuring 12 to 13 feet (3.6 to 3.9m) long.
