The Meg got Longer

A new paper suggest Otodus megalodon may have been longer than previously thought. What were their methods, and is this the final say in how big megalodon could get?
Read the paper here: palaeo-electronica.org/conten...

[@surgeonsergio6839]

I KNEW IT! I always found it strange that the meg would be bulky when in real life the gigantic sharks like the whale shark and basking sharks have an elongated, slender profile.

[@RaptorChatter]

Yep, it makes a lot of sense, but is still a bit inconclusive. I expect some more concrete research to come out in the next few years.

[@KadenSlinker]

@@RaptorChatterDo you think there will be a new study that refutes this current study regarding the appearance of Megalodon?

[@just_a_random_dude_404]

​@@KadenSlinker that's for sure

[@beastmaster0934]

They shrunk the dunk. While Megalodon became MegaLONGdon.

[@nicolegoodew1547]

Beat me to it 😂

[@AidanMartin]

WeenieLONGdon more like it now

[@bkjeong4302]

Magnified the Meg…. The 20m estimate for the very largest (freak) megalodon specimens was based on a stout body: with the new proportions those specimens would have been 24-25m long (!!).

[@DreadEnder]

Add a g to the end

[@Godwinmgodwinm]

​So you are saying that the largest megalodon could have reached 28 m ​(90 feet) .Thats close to blue whale length. @@bkjeong4302

[@jessehunter362]

To clarify something: whale sharks aren't lamniformes, the two large-bodied filter feeding lamniformes mentioned are the basking and megamouth sharks.

[@RaptorChatter]

I didn't realize that. From what I had recalled they were also Lamniformes. Thanks for the correction

[@jessehunter362]

@@RaptorChatter oh, i assumed you had and it was just poor wording!

[@jessehunter362]

@@jurassicsammysstudio7815 neither of those are large-bodied filter-feeders

[@RaptorChatter]

I had these written in my script, but cut mentioning them for time.

[@vinny184]

@@RaptorChatterwhale sharks are carpet sharks

[@youruncleted]

the evolution of every shark fossil seems to be just switching between butterball and torpedo sausage

[@DreadEnder]

Dunkleosteus: “hey give me some of that back!”

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

Megalodon: "MINE NOW!" 😁

[@aottadelsei980]

What I find interesting is that everyone is talking about Megalodon length no is really talking about it’s width. This is a direct quote from the paper “megalodon vertebrae from Belgium along with the original vertebral column length of 11.1+ m indicates a vertebral column not only much thinner in relative terms than that of a white shark but also more gracile than those of smaller-bodied lamnids with known vertebral size data (Gottfried et al., 1996; Natanson et al., 2002; Doño et al., 2015).” This basically mean the girth of megalodon is in question when using a lamnid-like reconstructions.

[@retardcorpsman]

The meg might soon lose weight and its total size as it seems...

[@fredbloggs8072]

It's annoying that we have no decent articulated fossils of this amazing animal (and possibly never will), considering it only became extinct comparatively recently.

[@Tidal_Terror]

Just to clarify, sharks don't have any bones at all. The teeth of a shark are still cartilage, it's just very calcified cartilage. Also whale sharks aren't lamniformes, they're Orectolobiformes, the order that contains carpet sharks like wobbegongs and nurse sharks.

[@brianedwards7142]

Porbeagles used to be called "sea dogs" because they followed ships using the shadow to hunt. They can make ascorbic acid internally like all fishes therefore there is no such thing as a scurvy sea dog. 🏴‍☠ Early reminder that September 19 is talk like a pirate day.

[@charlesunderwood6334]

We made a point in the paper of NOT saying how long it actually was because it would be too tempting for arguments. However, with a longer body, and probably more heterocercal tail giving a greater tail length, it may be that 15 metres was typical for an adult, very large females at maybe 20m, and rare, extremely old, females maybe touching a ceiling of 25m. Gigantic teeth are rare suggesting the normal adult size was a lot smaller than the odd giant.

[@RaptorChatter]

Love to see someone who helped with the paper in the comments. I personally am not a shark expert, so I hope I did it justice. I also love to hear based on your other comment that you did take some of the considerations I had into account, but just had to cut them for length. I do think this makes a lot of sense on the surface of it, especially with the deep sea tooth recently published on indicating they could make trans-Pacific journeys. If there was anything I could explain better please let me know for future videos!

[@charlesunderwood6334]

@@RaptorChatter The only related form we have are some specimens of small (1.5m) Cretalamna from the mid Cretaceous of Lebanon, and these have a body shape rather like Carcharhinus (heterocercal tail, not as spindle shaped as Lamnidae). Of course a lot can happen in a 12 fold size increase and 90 million years!

[@ISURAH-484]

​When you guys will release the next paper considering megalodon weight,proper computer modeling of the shark and much more..Also one question how you and your team unswervingly show beyond doubt that just because megalodon had more vertebrae ,does it really mean its slimmer and longer cuz cretoxyrhina had more vertebrae and similar in shapeto white shark.​@@charlesunderwood6334

[@ISURAH-484]

​@charlesunderwood6334 when you and your team will release the next detailed paper on this slimmer megalodon regarding its lifestyle, 3dmodel and all of the other information?

[@charlesunderwood6334]

@@ISURAH-484 Probably not enough data at the moment for a solid paper now it is split from the pain part

[@lh3540]

That thresher shark looks like it took a flying leap with an unwilling remora attached.

[@Kenshi_2900]

Good news Dunkleosteus Your Length Reduction Surgery was a success Where is Megalodon? Who do you think took your Length?

[@charlesunderwood6334]

Also, the paper got rejected as a rebuttal of the original paper, and had to be edited, and severely cut, to be published. A lot of comparative work and also discussion across related and non related large sharks had to be cut.

[@stephenstine3049]

In the longer draft that had to be cut, did you discuss the documented Denmark Meg fossil with about 20 vertical centra and an associated 6.2 slant height anterior tooth? The largest of those vertebrae are documented to be about 23 cm in diameter, far larger than the specimens you were using. Truly unfortunate that those Denmark fossils are now lost to science, but the research paper is extremely well documented. Since the centra seems to be associated with a large, but not maximum size anterior tooth, it does suggest that the adult Meg vertical centra could be far thicker than the 15.5 maximum size vertebrates you were considering with your specimen. And of course with probably only about 10% of the total skeleton, it’s quite possible that there were larger centra than the 23 cm ones for the Denmark Megalodon. To me, this suggests that vertebral center could in fact be very thick for the shark - maybe 26-28 cm diameter for very large adults. I was quite surprised your paper never discussed those Denmark centra in any aspect. But perhaps it had to be cut from your original draft. Your thoughts? I would be very interested to hear them.

[@ISURAH-484]

​Actually based on scaling ,the 23 cm megalodon could have belonged to a monster of 23.6m ,applying the new method of meg being longer ,that danish vertebrae could have belonged to a megalodon of 27.3m long (~ close to 90 feet)..😅​@@stephenstine3049And probably weighed more than 200 tons ..

[@ISURAH-484]

​​​​​​​​​@@stephenstine3049If the largest vertebral centra diameter is indeed 28 cm in that vertebral column, it would result in ginormous sizes of >30m? for that megalodon theoretically😅😮..based on the elongated specimen of biggest vertebral centra of 15.5 cm Belgian specimen reached 60 feet in its elongated form..

[@psalmerperena4120]

Could you do videos about prehistoric sharks possibly related to the Megalodon. These are Angustidens and Chubutensis. They're smaller than the Meg but still much larger than the Great White. They probably rival Mosasaurs and Pliosaurs in size.

[@jukeseyable]

as my mate steve would say, Meglodon, a bit of a unit!

[@thomasdevlin5825]

I remember some people saying megalodon could get as big as a blue whale, then they said it was only like ten metes and it has been getting slowly bigger ever since

[@Godwinmgodwinm]

The high estimate of this Elongated megalodon now is from 60-90feet ..

[@mythplatypuspwned]

Is there a possibility that it was it could actually be from a giant filter-feeding prehistoric shark species instead of Megalodon? Have there been any large filter-feeding shark fossils ever found? I don't know anything about that so I'm interested in learning more.

[@jessehunter362]

to my knowledge, there are only 2 reasonably conclusively filter feeding sharks found period, with filterfeeding suspected in three other genera, one of which can't be conclusively determined to be a proper elasmobranch at all, as it's known exclusively from teeth, and two in the Phoebodontiformes. The two reasonably conclusively filter feeding sharks are Aquillolamna, 1.9 meters wide and 1.6 meters long, which is a lamniformes, and Dave, which I know very little about, but is around 15 feet in length, and on display in Morden, Manitoba. I only found out about him while researching to write this comment. I need to go to Morden, Manitoba immediately.

[@RaptorChatter]

As the other commenter said Aquilolamna would be the closest. Unfortunately most sharks that become filter feeders don't really have teeth. So there could be an entire group of whale shark like sharks which existed in the fossil record that we just don't know about. Based on the few filter feeders in the Western Interior seaway I wouldn't be shocked if that was the case

[@eamonahern7495]

That's a reasonable question given that it was found without teeth but in an area where other megalodon teeth have been found.

[@mrln247]

I'm also suspicious of this since it's a vertebral column but without associated teeth which appear to preserve well. Other than making assumptions there seems no better evidence it's Megaladon than a large toothless filter feeding shark, especially with the description of the phylogeny.

[@keepcalmlovedinosaurs8934]

Megalodon features in chapter 7 of Carnian Street, though its features briefly in segmented sequences seizing a squalodon because obviously I couldn't be sure of its mass with the ever-changing estimates of its ratio. Glad I haven't written any material about dunkleosteus yet!

[@patreekotime4578]

I feel like fundamentally the new study has the exact same problem as the previous study: assuming we know what this fossil is. The previous study went to extra length of assuming we know exactly what kind of shark Megalodon was... so it ended up being a chain of assumptions. But the new study still assumes this was Megalodon. And maybe that is a reasonable assumption.... but at the time it was also considered a reasonable assumption to think Meg was a Lamnid! The whole thing feels problematic and should probably carry *far* more caveats than many presenters are giving. There is a similar problem with assuming we know how the jaw is shaped in order to determine length. I wasn't aware of any complete Megalodon jaw fossils, just isolated teeth that have been assembled in reconstructions based on assumed taxa. But how do we know if Megs head and jaws weren't shaped completely differently than any exact species?

[@professorcassowary]

I think this new study is better and has fewer assumptions than the previous one, but you have a point about how little certainty there is with megalodon.

[@patreekotime4578]

@@professorcassowary for sure.

[@retardcorpsman]

What previous study are you people referring to? The 2021 perez study?

[@lordlammi1562]

imagine Megalodon was a super long serpentine shark.

[@jasmineleilanikyle6064]

The silence of the ending throws me off sometimes 😅 Also the idea of finding a fossil in the ocean blows my mind for some reason!

[@Alberad08]

Interesting material - thank you very much for providing this here!

[@RaptorChatter]

You're welcome!

[@jurassicsammysstudio7815]

Dunk donated some size 💀

[@brianedwards7142]

I'm reeling from the idea that it takes a PhD to basically watch a fish rot. All those years of self denial seem worth it. Talk about thankyou for your service.

[@RaptorChatter]

It's more that PhD students are generally the only ones who have the ability to stay on one project for that long of a time because of the publish or perish nature in academia right now. If you can't get out a few publications a year, you can't get a job.

[@jurassictyrantkingYT]

Dunkleosteus got nerfed😢 Megalodon Got Longer😊

[@laughinglaughing1416]

Prehistory be like: A stone for a stone

[@dr.archaeopteryx5512]

Perfectly balanced.

[@ISURAH-484]

What balanced?

[@dr.archaeopteryx5512]

@@ISURAH-484 Dunk got shrunk Megalodon got super long

[@artificercreator]

Oh woa, good info

[@RosalinaDeAnda]

Amazing channel, I personally remain skeptical on this hot topic of debate, I think we need more reserach and evidence. I will note that normally weight, length, height, and or width, normally correlate in some form. For example, I measured my hand's lenght and my heads circumference in inches. My hand has a length of around 7 inches and my head had a circumference of around 22.5 inches (Note: I am a little tall so some of my proportions are much larger, additionally, these measurements are obviously not 100% accurate) I then meausured my Mom's hand and head,her hand has a length of around 7 inches while her head has a circumference of around 22 inches yet I think her head has a circumference of around 22.1 to 22.5. I then measured my cousins hand and head, her hand has a length of around 6 inches, so using the information I collected from my Mom and me, I can theorize that her head has a circumference of around 18 to 22 inches. Yet, the problem with this is that indiviual variation is very common in humans so this method was not the best. I'm not saying this paper is wrong but I'm just saying that in most organisms weight, length, height, and or width have to correlate at least in one way. Those are just my personal thoughts and opinions on this hot topic of debate. I still remain skeptical on this hot topic of debate and further research and evidence will reveal more about Megalodon and more of Paleontology.

[@MartaRzehorz]

"the meg", oh no, when I saw this I thought I had a stroke, english langauge don't do this to me

[@1998topornik]

Some prehistoric fish get short stick others long one.

[@Fede_99]

Megalongdon

[@nigersaurusrex]

how much longer?

[@Godwinmgodwinm]

As close as 24.1metres (79 feet) ...based on MNHCP 62 specimen .

[@ISURAH-484]

24m

[@posticusmaximus1739]

Speaking of "the meg" any one seen the movie? Dwight Schrutte is in it

[@optimusprime-i5h]

yes & it was a stupid fun film

[@octolia2024]

How Long Is It Now?

[@just_a_random_dude_404]

24,1 meters long

[@octolia2024]

24?! That's Longer Than S Sikanniensis!

[@galan444]

Instead of Shaq we get Manute Bol.

[@user-zm5pm5yr9c]

You tell right but the comments is so bad you can see 😢

[@ISURAH-484]

What do you mean?

[@Sulmifairy]

𝐈𝐭𝐬 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐞

[@takenname8053]

Long boy now

[@ISURAH-484]

How long do you think it is?

[@takenname8053]

@@ISURAH-484 Blue Whale long jk :P

[@ISURAH-484]

@@takenname8053 25 m is more reliable for slender megalodon .Blue whale can be up to 30m

[@ISURAH-484]

​@@takenname8053really you think it can reach blue whale sizes?

[@takenname8053]

@@ISURAH-484 I had jk at the end for Just Kidding. I wasn't being serious.

[@Th0ughtf0rce]

Meg to T-rex: "my turn...."

[@PortmanRd]

...and then it went extinct.

[@crinsombone5380]

I'll be really disappointed if megalodon is long instead of the bulky giant I thought it was. But I can't change reality so if it's true I'll just have to accept lanky megalodon

[@RaptorChatter]

It's the same as Dunkleosteus. Thing's change, but in terms of the world at that time and their biology it makes sense. Megalodon was swimming across seas, so a long more efficient body would be good. It was an ambush predator, so a short rapid body would be good. The question is where does the happy middle end up, and i think this could be reasonable with generally smaller prey than modern whales meaning more long trips.

[@Frotheru_The_Dragon]

*_E-L-O-N-G-A-T-E_*

[@barrybarlowe5640]

I need more than conjecture. Give me a fossil! Then you can say Megalodon was 'X meters long'. Otherwise he's just a mouth on a beachball for all the evidence.

[@Frotheru_The_Dragon]

sharks dont have bones,so its a lot rarer to encounter a shark fossil than any other prehistoric animal. Most of shark's remains just... dont become a fossil

[@stephenhartford8227]

I’d say this proves modern day sharks can get larger than previously thought .

[@tylerattwood9392]

They think the megalodon was bigger, but they refuse to say how much bigger. Very frustrating

[@galan444]

Not bigger, just longer, more likely skinnier.

[@ISURAH-484]

24m ...

[@tylerattwood9392]

@@ISURAH-484 Thank you very much

[@tumble2731]

Free Palestine RAHHH🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

[@steventhompson399]

Free east Prussia from Russia! Free kuril islands from Russia! Free Tibet from China! Free oh wait, this is unrelated to this video i.e. spam, please don't spam