15 million years before megalodon, this giant ancient shark roamed the oceans
A huge shark that lived 115 million years ago was larger than modern great white sharks, paleontologists have discovered.
Reinhard Dirscherl via Getty Images
Before the famous huge megalodon, another formidable ocean predator roamed the seas. According to an article published earlier this year in Communication Biology, a massive shark that was larger than modern great white sharks. roamed the waters of what is now Australia 15 million years before the appearance of megalodon.
After analyzing a set of five vertebrae found on an Australian beach, paleontologists have concluded that this ancient shark probably had a length of about eight meters – for comparison: great white sharks today they tend to grow to about six meters.
“To the world it would look like a modern basking shark, because that's its beauty,” Benjamin Keer, senior curator at the Swedish Museum of Natural History and co-author of the study, told the publication Associated Press. “This body model has lasted 115 million years and represents an evolutionary success story.”
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Although sharks have 450 million years In Earth's history, the ancestors of modern great whites do not appear in the fossil record until 135 million years ago. Most importantly, these ancestors were typically small fish—only a meter or so in length. Earlier discoveries suggested that truly giant sharks, such as megalodons (which could reach 17 meters in length), appeared about 100 million years ago. But new analysis shows that basking sharks appeared earlier than previously thought.
The team behind the discovery now plans to search for remains of other ancient basking sharks to try to color in some more parts of the shark evolutionary tree.
“They must have been somewhere before,” Kear told the AP. “This thing had ancestors.” Before the famous huge megalodon, another formidable ocean predator roamed the seas. According to an article published earlier this year in Current Biology, a massive shark that was larger than modern great white sharks. roamed the waters of what is now Australia 15 million years before the appearance of megalodon.
After analyzing a set of five vertebrae found on an Australian beach, paleontologists have concluded that this ancient shark probably had a length of about eight meters – for comparison: great white sharks today they tend to grow to about six meters.
“To the world it would look like a modern basking shark, because that's its beauty,” Benjamin Keer, senior curator at the Swedish Museum of Natural History and co-author of the study, told the publication Associated Press. “This body model has lasted 115 million years and represents an evolutionary success story.”
Although sharks have 450 million years In Earth's history, the ancestors of modern great whites do not appear in the fossil record until 135 million years ago. Most importantly, these ancestors were typically small fish—only a meter or so in length. Earlier discoveries suggested that truly giant sharks, such as megalodons (which could reach 17 meters in length), appeared about 100 million years ago. But new analysis shows that basking sharks appeared earlier than previously thought.
The team behind the discovery now plans to search for remains of other ancient basking sharks to try to color in some more parts of the shark evolutionary tree.
“They must have been somewhere before,” Kear told the AP. “This thing had ancestors.”
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