THE WASHINGTON POST - The extinct shark megalodon is often imagined as a beefy, supersize great white, with a gaping maw of pointy teeth capping off a powerful body that spanned 50 feet from nose to tail. Now, a team of more than two dozen scientists argues that the megalodon has been misunderstood, and may have been slimmer and longer than previous estimates.
The new study, published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, is the latest chapter in an ongoing scientific dispute about what this apex marine predator really looked like and what its role was in ancient ocean ecosystems.
“This was one of the largest marine carnivores to ever live, and it was clearly a major component in the marine ecosystem,” said Phillip Sternes, a graduate student and shark paleontologist at the University of California at Riverside and lead author of the study.