You’ll love all these interesting Megalodon shark facts. Megalodon shark (Carcharocles megalodon) is an extinct shark species. It is thought to be one of the world’s largest predators among vertebrates. Megalodon is a Greek word which means ‘big tooth’. Previously, it was thought that the great white is a cousin of megalodon due to the similarity in their teeth. But today, it is widely believed that both of them belong to two different lineages.
Megalodon Shark🦈Facts for Kids
It is possible that megalodon may be similar in appearance to the great white, basking shark or perhaps the whale shark.
According to its fossil remains, megalodon can be at least 59 feet in length and perhaps as long as 79 feet. In size, megalodon dwarfs even the great white, which is about the size of its clasper.
Megalodon existed a
s early as 23 million years ago and it became extinct around 2.3 million years ago.
Teeth are the common fossil remains of this shark. Each tooth is dense, robust and triangle-shaped. It has an angled length of about 180 millimeters. The teeth of megalodon are the largest among all shark species.
It may have occupied temperate to subtropical waters of the world. It was widely distributed across Africa, Europe, Australia and Americas. Megalodon inhabited deep offshore cooler waters like Mariana Trench.
Megalodon may have fed on large aquatic mammals like shark-toothed dolphins, bowhead, sperm, rorqual and baleen whales. It also preyed upon seals and sea turtles. The warm coastal waters were the most favorite nursery sites of this shark. The juveniles preyed mainly on giant sea turtles, small marine mammals, dugongs and fish.
