MEGALODON: separating the fact from the hype. Was it really the biggest & baddest?
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Prof Steve Wroe, who has published several papers on Megalodon and other sharks, brings you the very latest science on the very big fish. And buries some myths.
Get your science from a real scientist and your palaeontology from a real palaeontologist.
#paleontology #animals #megalodon #evolution #shark
I'm glad I randomly stumbled upon your channel, it's really cool to hear from an actual paleontologist! Would you consider doing a video on Barinasuchus? I think its interesting that apparently the largest land predator during the age of mammals was something that looks straight out of the Triassic.
Thank you! And yet definitely intend model to a crocodile. It is on my list.
I'm very grateful that I've found your channel! It isn't every day that I get to hear from a professional on a subject that I'm passionate about!
Thanks David! It's much appreciated.
Love this series, haven't missed one yet
Thanks!
I remember watching a documentary about Megalodon that stated that there was evidence that whales almost the size of modern blue whales existed alongside Megalodon, and apparently Megalodon went after it on occasion. However, I have never heard of an update of the find. 🤷♂️
No, I'm afraid this doco was wrong, and this sure wouldn't be the 1st time that a documentary misreported the science! The largest contemporary species I've found evidence for in the scientific literature is around the size of a Humpback Whale, which are typically around 14 m in length, i.e., smaller than megalodon. And this was toward the end of megalodon's tenure. The few actual fossil whale specimens with bite marks are smaller than this. Here's a link to a pretty recent paper documenting evidence for predation on small prey: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018216305417?via%3Dihub
Hi Professor Wroe! found your channel, and love it. i’m a student at victoria university in new zealand, I love how both NZ and Aus have crazy animals as cool examples of evolution on isolated islands. id love to see you talking about anything related to that if you could!
Thanks! I can definitely say I'll be doing other Australian and NZ stuff. One will be your giant New Zealand Eagle for sure. Myself and other folks in my lab wrote a paper on this just a couple of years ago. Awesome bird!
@@RealPaleontology Hello Dr. Wroe, I have some comments.
•Regarding megalodon's TL, I think Shimada et al. presented an abstract at SVP tentatively indicating 16.4 m for the Belgian specimen and 24 m for the Danish vertebrae.
•My understanding is that all or almost all predators in aquatic environments prey on smaller game, much less than the land predators which need to rely on grappling ability under 1G. Even the white sharks preyed on by orcas are much smaller, a size disparity that was not present between megalodon and Livyatan and perhaps was in favor of the shark. Sperm whales are not known to hunt in pack even though they are social animals, would it need to hunt in pack when there is nothing bigger than it beside perhaps some megalodons ? It also seems like Livyatan vanished at least million years earlier than megalodon and by the time the otodontid went extinct, the only remaining physeteroids had become squid eaters.
•Joe McClure recently proposed a hypothetical maximum length of 16.9 m for Livyatan and 21 m and 100 t for Physeter.
•The smaller reptile swallowed by the Chinese ichthyosaur was relatively much lighter than would be between megalodon and the giant shastasaurids. It appears the 81 t estimate for S. sikanniensis is based on an overly rotund body and the recent article by Gayford et al. threw some cold water on some of those estimates for the proposed blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs. It is also possible S. sikanniensis has been overestimated by 4 m as others have been unable to replicate this result.
Best.
Great video always thought Basilosaurus was one of the biggest as I remember it from Walking With Ancient Beasts
Great, thanks! Yes, Basilosaurus is definitely up there in length, and was certainly the monster of its time, but it was very long and slender. In terms of weight and bite force it's well behind the others.
i frickin LOVE this guy !!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks!
Hi Professor Wroe! Great video. Just wondering how highly did you rate the movie, The Meg?
Hi Dr Rex. I thought it was fun, but I feel that their size estimate was maybe a little on the high side. I'm also a bit skeptical of the proposition that they're still around...
Very interesting video. Its very refreshing to hear a scientist address the criteria needed to be a super-predator. The body size of prey relative to the predator is constantly overlooked in these debates especially when dinosaurs are brought into the mix (T.Rex being the most famous example).
Yes, T-Rex is interesting.
I think part of the answer here is that T-Rex was preying heavily on a particularly tough and dangerous beast in triceratops
@@RealPaleontology Definitely. However it still was larger than it on average if I'm not mistaken.
Most estimates put the average weight of T. rex above that of Triceratops. But I gotta admit there's not much in it.
@@RealPaleontology
Hello Dr. Wroe, I'd have some comments.
I agree with your opinion that even Sternes new revision (up to 24 m TL) does not change the conclusions of the 2022 paper, they even vindicate it I opine.
Have you read Gayford et al. (2024) and its supplementary data, it adresses maximum size in the fossil record and it appears quite likely S. sikanniensis was actually about 4 m shorter than 21 m because of original misreading of the quarry and others have been unable to replicate the 21 m TL, which would also impact the size estimate of Ichthyotitan as it is also based on S. sikanniensis traditional 21 m.
Also, the 80 t volume was using the rather outlier rotund Shonisaurus popularis and independant researchers using GDIs got 30-40 t for a 18-21 m S. sikanniensis.
Note the 4 m reptile swallowed whole by the 5 m Guizhouichthyosaurus was stated in the paper to be 7 times lighter which reported to a hypothetical 80 t ichthyosaur would mean swallow a 11 t prey, this would be already phenomenal but hardly equal to swallow a 50 t megalodon.
Joe McClure recently published his research on cetacean size and using Physeter size distribution deduced the maximum size of Livayatan, assuming the holotype was 15 m, would be about 17 m.
This would suggest Livyatan like modern Pseudorca to white sharks, overlaped megalodon in size but did not surpass it as far as we know, which is in stark contrast to the 6 t orca relative to the 2 t white shark. I doubt the preserved Livayatan teeth have any hints suggesting a diet composed of large sharks and the already very high trophic level deduced for megalodon makes it hard to envision a sustainable even higher level. Rather, a 2019 abstract using isotopic data deduced Livyatan did not target exclusively large prey as baleen whales.
Also, by your definition, other than the pack hunting orcas, there are no true oceanic superpredators preying on larger game ? Isn't it rather a constant in marine wildlife ? Killing a larger prey item is rather more commonly observed on land due to the grappling and 1 G dimension ?
Would like to see a video about Kronosaurus/Eiectus being a super predator
Absolutely! It's definitely on the list. One of my PhD students, Colin McHenry, did his PhD on Kronosaurus. This 'Devourer of Gods' should be on any super predator shortlist. And it's Australian!
Thank you again for the extensive analysis! I have just one comment -- wouldn't it be better to redefine superpredator as not something (including all other definition parts) that can hunt larger prey that itself but the largest available prey in the environment? I guess all four mentioned superpredators: Shonisaurus, Ichthyotitan, Otodus megalodon and the Lyviatan were able to hunt the largest available prey in the oceans of their times. This re-definition could be more obejctive, since it excludes from the equation the relativity of sizes.
Thanks. That's good point. I suppose that the only issue here is that in such an instance we can never know how large a prey it could take because there can never be direct evidence for it. But I fully accept that to some degree the definition of super predator is an arbitrary one. So there is no absolute right or wrong.
Good to see a paleontologist sharing his view. I am also studying these themes and have some observations. Ichthyosaurs also have different morphologies and corresponding prey processing capacities. Some were truly macroraptorial but modest in size while others also had teeth but were macrophagous at best. Shonisaurus does not seem to have a skull structure that would allow it to swallow a shark above 20 feet in length to be precise and even my modest estimate needs testing. Livyatan was impressive but seems to be overhyped in discourses - those 30 cm long teeth will be partly inside the jaw structure and it is important to look at how they were positioned and pointed. There are several lines of evidence that indicate that the Megalodon preyed on macroraptorial sperm whales. I am not sure why Great whites are used to understand ecology of the Megalodon when these two species are not established to be feeding on the same trophic level - Great whites do not have the right size, prey processing capacity and aggression to feed on a higher trophic level. There is also the assumption that it must be a really big Megalodon that would be attacking largest animals of the time, there is in fact evidence of Megalodon juveniles attacking relatively larger animals and even other macropredators. Also, a 24 m Megalodon is a behemoth from any perspective - one has to wonder the type of top-down ecological effects it would have produced in any habitat.
Interesting. Can you point me to the evidence of megalodon juveniles attacking other macro predators? It is of course far from clear that the big fish ever reached 24 m in length, but even at 18 m it would be a behemoth regardless. Really it's the mass more than the length that matters.
@@RealPaleontology I think he refers to Godfrey (2021) about the physeteroid plausibly bitten to death by a presumably young megalodon/small otondontid.
Regarding attacks toward a larger prey item, the bitten mysticetes rib in Kallal (2012) is implied to have come from a large whale (10 m or more) while the attacking shark was suggested at 4-7 m.
But if megalodon grew to 20 m or more, there were simply no prey items larger than this. But to quote Compagno a large megalodon clearly had the killing apparatus to inflict mortal wounds on a fin or blue whale.
I liked this video, interesting and informative
Are the megalodon one of if not the largest predator the planet has ever seen?
from 16 to 24 meters and 61 to 100 tons
Absolutely one of the biggest. May even be the biggest!
I think the best way to compare livyatan and megalodon is the effectiveness of their bite on large prey
Livyatan has large teeth, but they are a bit blunt. And may not bite deep on very large whales.
Megalodon teeth though are smaller, let's not forget that they are still 3 times the scale of that of a great white, and well suited for slicing off chunks from a larger whale.
Definitely the sharks teeth are bitter adapted for tearing out slices. But they would be next to useless for slicing through bone, unlike the whale. They likely had very different killing techniques, and may of targeted very different prey.
I nominate the Orca as the all time biggest bad super predator. They can in some individuals reach 32 ft in size. And they hunt animals bigger than themselves.
I'm inclined to agree
The top predator is man actually but speaking of sea life then it's orca.
Fun fact the empirel toys company in the 1970's made a toy sperm whale that looked like leviathan long before the leviathan sperm whale was ever found, the movie Pinocchio the sperm whale in the movie looked like a cartoon image of the leviathan sperm whale so we been making leviathan before we found leviathan.
Interesting
Benites Palomino et al. 2022 reported the presence of three shark bite marks on the holotype specimen of Livyatan melvillei.
Awesome! Thanks for the heads up! Just found the paper. Don't know how I missed it? Didn't pop up in any of my literature searches. But it's clearly very relevant! Thanks again.
@@RealPaleontology No Problem Sir
Surely, the superpredator qualificiation of "needs to hunt prey larger than itself" can be looked past for predators that are larger than any other animal in its time period.
Absolutely. I'm just putting out definitions that have already been raised. There's no formally recognised rating system. And your free to make your own call on this!
Liked because i did. Commented for the algorithm
Thank you
Damn, I love this channel! Can't stop watching these! On a side note the bite force for livyatan needs to measured asap, I suspect it's stronger than the meg's.
Awesome, thanks so much! And yes, I agree BF for Livyatan needs to be done. I'm sure it will be. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is greater than that of megalodon.
Who would've won between Megalodon and Livyatan in your opinion?
If they were both the same size I would put my money on the whale
@ would it go differently if we took their average or maximum sizes
Well yes, just depends on which average sizes you use.
@@RealPaleontology Can you explain ? Today the great white shark sized Pseudorca does not seem to be a threat to great white sharks and I recall Compagno (1990) stating Pseudorca is not at the same trophic level as Carcharodon.
Unless you assume this because you expect Livyatan having higher bite forces ?
Megalodon the ultimate super predator
Yup - lots of people agree with you
Livyatan Aust colossus Hectors Ichthyosaur Swiss Tyrant and Ichthyotitan :
@@Mei23448 Livyatan max length : 17 m (McClure 2024), Otodus max length : 24 m (Shimada 2024).
Hector is literally nothing at this point and Ichthyotitan will probably gets some shrinking as sikanniensis was not 21 m.
@@francissemyon7971 Livyatan 25 meters and 185 tons Meg 15 meters and 35 tons cope hectors 457 tons and 40 meters and Ichthyotitan is 30 meters and 100+ tons cope
@@Mei23448 Sorry, I could not find any source for your claims about 300 t ichthyosaurs.
I find it hard to make sense of the megalodon and the livyatan living together. If they were so similar in size and were both macro-raptorial then they would have filled almost exactly the same ecological niche. Have they been found together? If not then isn't it possible that one lived in warmer habitats and the other in colder ones?
Hi, and yes, I agree that it's unlikely that there was total overlap in their distributions and ranges. But there was almost certainly some, just as there is between white sharks and walkers today.
So Livyatan and the Megalodon lose the title of "super-predator" only because there were no animals their own size to sink their teeth into? That's sheer bad luck.
They wouldn't have even tried to eat each other unless they were truly desperate. If a predator gets into a fight and is crippled, it loses, even if it survives and the other animal doesn't, because a crippled predator will probably be unable to hunt. A fight with an about equally large and well-armed predator is practically guaranteed to have that result.
No they don't lose the title of super predators. They're just not in the same league as some others.
Large predatory sharks generally don’t go after prey that could seriously injure or kill them unless they’re really, really hungry or really, really desperate. Highly social animals will take that risk as will animals like crocodilians that can survive and thrive with some pretty gnarly injuries.
Sharks do heal pretty well but not well enough to survive injuries that can impair their mobility or breathing. They’ll scavenge on big whales, obviously & great whites will occasionally go for a living baleen whale or elephant seal but for the most part they stick to smaller prey. I’d presume O. Megalodon would be rather similar.
Agreed
Was dimetrodon a super predator ?
That's a good question. I'm definitely going to have a go at answering it in a later episode.
@@RealPaleontology awesome! Look forward to seeing that
The question is then, why did not one but two species of apex predators get that big when the whale prey back then was much smaller than what is available these days. Back then huge apex predators hunted relatively modest prey, today the relatively small orca successfully hunt gigantic whales. So being orca sized, hunting as a pack is big enough to hunt all sizes of whales, up to giant blues. Plus, I would assume that a smaller whale is more nimble, how does a huge lyviathan hunt somethign small and nimble? I would assume that an orca has problems hunting dolphins. So it can't be better chances at hunting cetaceans that turned them that large. So what was the hunting strategy of the megalodon and lyviathan, what was their habitat and lifestyle where being that large was an advantage. A large animal needs to feed less frequently and can store more energy, so was it long periods of food scarcity and really long migrations? Did they both live in cold environments? What was the earth's climate and ocean temperatures back then, when there weren´t even ice caps.
There's a lot to unpack here. But I think at least part of the explanation for why the Miocene oceans could support 2 such large predators, is that climate and ocean currents supported a greater biomass of medium-size prey in places that the predators could reach.
I agree
@@RealPaleontology
Hello Dr. Wroe, I'd have some comments.
I agree with your opinion that even Sternes new revision (up to 24 m TL) does not change the conclusions of the 2022 paper, they even vindicate it I opine.
Have you read Gayford et al. (2024) and its supplementary data, it adresses maximum size in the fossil record and it appears quite likely S. sikanniensis was actually about 4 m shorter than 21 m because of original misreading of the quarry and others have been unable to replicate the 21 m TL, which would also impact the size estimate of Ichthyotitan as it is also based on S. sikanniensis traditional 21 m.
Also, the 80 t volume was using the rather outlier rotund Shonisaurus popularis and independant researchers using GDIs got 30-40 t for a 18-21 m S. sikanniensis.
Note the 4 m reptile swallowed whole by the 5 m Guizhouichthyosaurus was stated in the paper to be 7 times lighter which reported to a hypothetical 80 t ichthyosaur would mean swallow a 11 t prey, this would be already phenomenal but hardly equal to swallow a 50 t megalodon.
Joe McClure recently published his research on cetacean size and using Physeter size distribution deduced the maximum size of Livayatan, assuming the holotype was 15 m, would be about 17 m.
This would suggest Livyatan like modern Pseudorca to white sharks, overlaped megalodon in size but did not surpass it as far as we know, which is in stark contrast to the 6 t orca relative to the 2 t white shark. I doubt the preserved Livayatan teeth have any hints suggesting a diet composed of large sharks and the already very high trophic level deduced for megalodon makes it hard to envision a sustainable even higher level. Rather, a 2019 abstract using isotopic data deduced Livyatan did not target exclusively large prey as baleen whales.
Also, by your definition, other than the pack hunting orcas, there are no true oceanic superpredators preying on larger game ? Isn't it rather a constant in marine wildlife ? Killing larger game isn't rather more commonly observed on land due to the grappling under 1 G ?
@@RealPaleontology
Hello Dr. Wroe, I'd have some comments.
I agree with your opinion that even Sternes new revision (up to 24 m TL) does not change the conclusions of the 2022 paper, they even vindicate it I opine.
Have you read Gayford et al. (2024) and its supplementary data, it adresses maximum size in the fossil record and it appears quite likely S. sikanniensis was actually about 4 m shorter than 21 m because of original misreading of the quarry and others have been unable to replicate the 21 m TL, which would also impact the size estimate of Ichthyotitan as it is also based on S. sikanniensis traditional 21 m.
Also, the 80 t volume was using the rather outlier rotund Shonisaurus popularis and independant researchers using GDIs got 30-40 t for a 18-21 m S. sikanniensis.
Note the 4 m reptile swallowed whole by the 5 m Guizhouichthyosaurus was stated in the paper to be 7 times lighter which reported to a hypothetical 80 t ichthyosaur would mean swallow a 11 t prey, this would be already phenomenal but hardly equal to swallow a 50 t megalodon.
Joe McClure recently published his research on cetacean size and using Physeter size distribution deduced the maximum size of Livayatan, assuming the holotype was 15 m, would be about 17 m.
This would suggest Livyatan like modern Pseudorca to white sharks, overlaped megalodon in size but did not surpass it as far as we know, which is in stark contrast to the 6 t orca relative to the 2 t white shark. I doubt the preserved Livayatan teeth have any hints suggesting a diet composed of large sharks and the already very high trophic level deduced for megalodon makes it hard to envision a sustainable even higher level. Rather, a 2019 abstract using isotopic data deduced Livyatan did not target exclusively large prey as baleen whales.
Also, by your definition, other than the pack hunting orcas, there are no true oceanic superpredators preying on larger game ? Isn't it rather a constant in marine wildlife ? Killing a larger prey item is rather more commonly observed on land due to the grappling and 1 G dimension ?
Btw off topic, but I'd still argue the Megalodon evolved into today's Great White Shark. Some scientists like Mike Gottfried continue to argue Megalodon should be place in Carcharodon. I know Otodus or Carcharocles is the general opinion btw. Still, the Hubbell White Shark proves nothing. The supposed transitional teeth for Isurus Hastalis ---> Carcharodon Carcharias only date to 5 - 8 million years ago, and Great Whites first appeared 16 million years ago. We also have evidence of transitional teeth for Megalodon ---> Great White. Well kinda. The teeth have a typical Carcharodon Carcharias shape, but serrations and bourlette of a Megalodon. Juvenile Megs look like Great White teeth with bourlette, but they're also as thin. We also have found more Megalodon fossils like snout, skull, jaws, and vertebrae, and they have a Great White-like shape. Megalodon should stay Carcharodon, but that's my opinion
Mmmm, you give me something to think about there, I'll have to chase it up. I haven't really researched shark phylogenetics, I'm more into biomechanics. But I will look into this further thanks for the heads up.
@@RealPaleontology
Ah okay.
@@RealPaleontology
Oh yeah, we have evidence Megalodon teeth change proportions depending on size. I saw a comparison where juvenile Megalodon and adult Great White have very similar teeth, but the Meg has bourlette.
Great whites are literally older than Meg 💀
🧢🧢🧢
The figure is of a great White but scaling with a Sand tiger or a Mako
Not sure which figure you're talking about?
@@RealPaleontology a great white has the figure a drop meanwhile the Mako is like a torpedo, I think Megalodon body shape is in the middle of both
People who think megalodon is still alive 🤡
I'm afraid I'm not one of those people.
@@RealPaleontology lol I definitely didn’t think you did but I know folks that stubbornly do unfortunately. Despite all the evidence I’ve showed them suggesting otherwise. Great video tho! Loving the super predator series so far, and can’t wait to see your next video 🦈
Have you seen JAWS VS The Meg btw?
Afraid not!
Since they are made up then that won't count, 2 mechanical sharks in Hollywood.
i don't know whether killer whales lived at the same time but its likely they would have made a meal of megalodon if they did. they don't seem to have any problem with great whites and large whales, and seem to be able to devise strategies for hunting any prey. intelligence and pack hunting, together with not insignificant size make the killer whale perhaps the ultimate all time ocean predator. megalodon was large, but likely solitary, and with our depleted oceans, we dont really know how formidable killer whales could really be.
There's very little chance orcas would be able to kill an adult megalodon. You have to remember that even the big whales that they target are virtually defenseless. They can only swing their tails around in the hope that they hit an orca. Megalodon had a huge pair of jaws that could eat an entire orca in three bites. Plus, sharks don't need to breathe air and can just dive down to depths where they can find peace and quiet, so as not to be pestered by orcas. This is what great whites do since they can dive much deeper than orcas can. Orcas are definitely awesome predators, but to say they could take on the likes of an adult megalodon would be a vast overexaggeration.
Good points. And yes, some researchers have suggested that the arrival of killer whales may have ended megalodon. And this certainly is a case to be made for putting killer whales at the top of the super predator table. This is something that I will talk about in a later episode. One possibility that complicates this, is that Livyatan was also quite likely a social hunter.
I think you may well be right regarding orcas. But a pod of Livyatan may have been another story.
@@RealPaleontology disagree the species of orca that lived with megalodon isn’t the same as the current species orcinus orca the species that lived with megalodon was much smaller and ate mostly fish and had similar lives to pilot or maybe false killer whales they simply wouldn’t have competed with each other
And about the “if they do well against great whites and whales they can surely have a meal out of a megalodon” no just no bugs and biology makes a great video about this topic
Is the unusual pronunciation of megalodon an Australian thing?
I don't know to be honest. But while ever there is an 'a' in megalodon, I will continue to pronounce it! Custom be damned!
Fair dinkum.
Do you think megalodons had the bigger thicker body or the more elongated thinner body
Personally I buy the idea it had a thicker body
To be honest I don't have a strong opinion on it, but if I had to guess I'd say probably the thicker body
@RealPaleontology yeah because we know they frequently ate whales and while trophic level suggests that ate everything
Let's be real dr wroe, a shark as big as megalodon was needs to eat mostly big prey cuz that's a lot of meat you need to eat and it's evidenced by the bite marks on whale bones
And those bite marks shows it attacks whales by the ribs not the back, whale ribs are thick the rib bones are thick, and it's surrounded by thick muscle and blubber.
It takes a lot of power to get through that therefore that's why I believe it had a deeper body, to have more muscle power to actually achieve that
Hey you're entitled to your opinion. We know it ate whales, but not bigger than itself, for the simple reason that there were no whales that big around.
@@RealPaleontology no no no no no I'm not saying it ate whales bigger than itself
I'm fully aware it was primarily a predator of the smaller cetotheres
I'm just simply stating whales in general regardless of the size are thick tough opponents so if you're going to go for the chest you need a lot of muscle power, and therefore a deep body
@@RealPaleontology I am fully aware that even a big megalodon against a big like blue whale for example would probably go in the blue whale's favor
I'm gonna say that megalodon was a chode like Dunk. Thick not long.
Fair call
course they couldnt hunt prey their own size, most marine animals at a certain become just too big and dangerous to take down.
for example a humpback whales total skin and blubber thickness is up to a foot, thats almost impenetrable and humpback whales are a good size proxy to megalodon and livyatan
I think you're right
@@RealPaleontology just imagine if you upsized it to a blue whale....thats why i said elsewhere that adult blue whales are virtually indestructible
Livyatan Aust collossus Hectors Ichthyosaur Ichthyotitan and Swiss Tyrant beat meg!
Interesting
You wish Mei.
@@francissemyon7971 debate me
@@francissemyon7971 no u
I think Livyatan was the superior one!
I suspect that you are right
@@RealPaleontology I doubt, odontocetes usually don't solo kill sharks as large or larger than them; according to McClure (2024) based on the size distribution of Physeter, the maximum length of ́Livyatan is 17 m, according to the SVP abstract by Shimada, maximum length of megalodon is 24 m. Most of all, Livyatan is no orca and megalodon is no white shark, unless one proves a massive size disparity in favor of the cetacean.
Ye fr Livy destroys the overrated fish
@Adieu333-y9g No evidence for this, odontocetes don't engage predatory sharks their own size or larger.
@@francissemyon7971 they do even bottlenose dolphins scare adult great white sharks