SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Megalodons might have been longer and thinner than previously thought, according to a new study. The enormous, extinct sharks, scientists now say, grew to between 54 and 80 feet long and weighed about 94 tons. Earlier estimates had them at a maximum of 50 feet.
Based on the massive size of the animal’s serrated teeth, other scientists had suggested the megalodon resembled today’s great whites.
“Previous studies simply assumed that megalodon must have looked like a gigantic version of the modern great white shark without any evidence,” says study lead author Kenshu Shimada, a vertebrate paleontologist at DePaul University, to Jason Bittel at National Geographic.
Shimada and his colleagues first proposed that the megalodon might have had a skinnier body than great whites in a study published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica in January 2024. The megalodon likely looked more like a mako shark, they said when that study came out.
This new paper, published in the same journal on March 9, argues that the megalodon might have been even narrower than they first proposed.
“It was actually more like an enormous lemon shark, with a more slender, elongated body. That shape makes a lot more sense for moving efficiently through water,” says study co-author Phillip Sternes, a shark biologist at the University of California, Riverside, in a statement.