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You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

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  • You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

    It was 45 years ago that movie goers were scared to go to the beach thanks to the blockbuster hit movie "Jaws" which was about a Great White Shark terrorizing a New England community. But a Great White is dwarfed by what was the largest shark of all time, the Megalodon (which means "Big Tooth") and which lived from about 23 to 3 mya. While several teams of scientists have estimated its length based on framentary fossil remains (very little of a shark tends to fossilize), for the first team a team of researchers, led by the University of Bristol's Jack Cooper, have attempted to establish its other dimensions.

    Megalodons were about three times as long as the modern Great White (which is not a direct ancestor) running between 15 to 18 meters (roughly 50-60') long. To give some sort of comparison, a typical city bus is approximately only 14 meters (almost 46') long.

    Cooper's team has calculated that a 16 meter (52½') Megalodon would have possessed a head that was about 4.65 meters (15¼') long and sported a dorsal fin that was nearly as tall as the average man at 1.62 meters (just under 5'4") tall while the 3.85 meters tail was something like 3.85 meters (just over 12½') in height.


    jaw.jpg
    classic image of the staff from the American Museum
    of Natural History sitting inside a Meg jaw


    shark2.jpg
    New reconstruction of Megalodon's size and proportions at different life
    stages: a) 16-meter adult with 12 estimated body dimensions recorded;
    b) 3-meter new-born; c) 8-meter juvenile as well as an d) artistic
    reconstruction of a 16-meter adult



    As the title of the thread indicates,


    Here is the Abstract with the full paper available at: Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction

    Source: Abstract


    Inferring the size of extinct animals is fraught with danger, especially when they were much larger than their modern relatives. Such extrapolations are particularly risky when allometry is present. The extinct giant shark †Otodus megalodon is known almost exclusively from fossilised teeth. Estimates of †O. megalodon body size have been made from its teeth, using the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) as the only modern analogue. This can be problematic as the two species likely belong to different families, and the position of the †Otodus lineage within Lamniformes is unclear. Here, we infer †O. megalodon body dimensions based on anatomical measurements of five ecologically and physiologically similar extant lamniforms: Carcharodon carcharias, Isurus oxyrinchus, Isurus paucus, Lamna ditropis and Lamna nasus. We first assessed for allometry in all analogues using linear regressions and geometric morphometric analyses. Finding no evidence of allometry, we made morphological extrapolations to infer body dimensions of †O. megalodon at different sizes. Our results suggest that a 16 m †O. megalodon likely had a head ~ 4.65 m long, a dorsal fin ~ 1.62 m tall and a tail ~ 3.85 m high. Morphometric analyses further suggest that its dorsal and caudal fins were adapted for swift predatory locomotion and long-swimming periods.

    © Copyright Original Source




    Here are some accounts in the popular press:









    As an aside over the years I've picked up several Meg teeth ranging from 4 to 6" long and varying in color from slate black, chocolate brown and pale blonde.
    Last edited by rogue06; 09-06-2020, 03:29 AM.

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  • #2
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    As an aside over the years I've picked up several Meg teeth ranging from 4 to 6" long and varying in color from slate black, chocolate brown and pale blonde.
    Just out of curiosity, by "picked up", do you mean you personally found them, or found them for sale and purchased them....?
    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
      Just out of curiosity, by "picked up", do you mean you personally found them, or found them for sale and purchased them....?
      Pictures or the toofies don't exist!



      Securely anchored to the Rock amid every storm of trial, testing or tribulation.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by mossrose View Post
        Pictures or the toofies don't exist!

        The shark's. Not Rouges'! (gotta be specific)
        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
          The shark's. Not Rouges'! (gotta be specific)
          Ok.

          I want to see Meg's toofies.

          Maybe rogue-y's, too.



          Securely anchored to the Rock amid every storm of trial, testing or tribulation.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
            Just out of curiosity, by "picked up", do you mean you personally found them, or found them for sale and purchased them....?
            I found a black one in phosphate mine tallings in North Carolina on a Boy Scout field trip when I was a Scoutmaster for a New Bern, NC troop.
            Last edited by shunyadragon; 09-05-2020, 10:23 PM.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
              I found a black one in phosphate mine tallings in North Carolina on a Boy Scout field trip when I was a Scoutmaster for a New Bern, NC troop.
              Still got it?
              The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                Just out of curiosity, by "picked up", do you mean you personally found them, or found them for sale and purchased them....?
                Yes.


                Originally posted by mossrose View Post
                Pictures or the toofies don't exist!

                No camera and they're tucked away in a box somewhere. If you want to see what they look like just Google "Meg tooth" in images.

                I'm always still in trouble again

                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                  Yes.



                  No camera and they're tucked away in a box somewhere. If you want to see what they look like just Google "Meg tooth" in images.
                  I've seen pictures of them. And I've read the book. And I've seen the movies.

                  I think that's as close as I'd like to get, thanks.


                  Securely anchored to the Rock amid every storm of trial, testing or tribulation.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                    Still got it?
                    No, it is at the Boy Scout Camp collection on Albemarle Sound. Not a big one only 4". I collect a lot over the years as a geologist, but don't keep much. My amphibian tracks related to frogs from the Pennsylanian Period I found near Beckley, WV are in Youth Museum, at the Coal Mine Museum in Beckley, WV. That one is more significant. I may have pictures in one of my boxes. I still have an old wine bottle (18th century) I found in a swamp behind Jockey's Ridge State Park on the coast.
                    Last edited by shunyadragon; 09-07-2020, 07:36 PM.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                      No, it is at the Boy Scout Camp collection on Albemarle Sound. Not a big one only 4". I collect a lot over the years as a geologist, but don't keep much. My amphibian tracks related to frogs from the Pennsylanian Period I found near Beckley, WV are in Youth Museum, at the Coal Mine Museum in Beckley, WV. That one is more significant. I may have pictures in one of my boxes. I still have an old wine bottle (18th century) I found in a swamp behind Jockey's Ridge State Park on the coast.
                      That's actually pretty cool.
                      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                      Comment

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