Megalodon, a giant extinct species of shark that roamed the world’s oceans between 23 and 3.6 million years ago, was likely warm-blooded and had a body temperature significantly higher than modern-day sharks, new research shows.
A team of international scientists made the discovery while examining the animal’s fossilized teeth megalodon (Otodus megalodon), whose species name means “big tooth”. According to a study published Monday (June 26) in the Journal, these giant carnivores often reached a length similar to semi-trucks, about 15 meters Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
How many species of sharks, including great whites (Carcharodon carcharias), Megalodon is classified as “regionally endothermic” in the new research, meaning it can maintain its body heat even when its external environment is much cooler.
For the study, the researchers used a combination of geothermal techniques to estimate the basking shark’s body temperature from the composition of different isotopes, or element versions, in fossilized megalodon teeth.
Related: Could the megalodon still exist today?
“The temperature at which the mineral formed, including biologically mineralized hard tissues such as teeth, can be extrapolated from the degree of binding or ‘clumping’ of these isotopes,” said the study’s co-author Kenshu Shimada, a professor of paleobiology at DePaul University’s College of Science and Health in Chicago, told Live Science in an email. “The geochemical technique used was previously used to study the warm-blooded animals of dinosaur. The new study shows that the method can also be applied to marine vertebrates such as sharks, using their hard, well-mineralized anatomical components such as teeth.”
The study found that the megalodon’s average body temperature was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius), while modern regional endothermic sharks have an average body temperature of between 72 F and 80 F (22 C to 26.6 C) for study.
The increased body temperature of the megalodon would have brought many benefits.
“Warm-blooded animals are beneficial because they allow an animal to have a more active lifestyle, such as swimming long distances or swimming fast,” Shimada said. “Not only can modern-day warm-blooded animals such as mako sharks and great white sharks swim faster than their cold-blooded counterparts, their warm-blooded high metabolic heat also facilitates food digestion.”
However, being warm-blooded had its downsides, maybe even partly led to the extinction of the megalodon.
“The timing of megalodon’s disappearance from the fossil record coincides with the Earth’s climatic cooling,” Shimada said. “Warm-blooded animals must indeed have given the megalodon an ‘extra advantage’ to be able to survive in cool waters. But the fact that the species is extinct highlights the likely vulnerability or ‘cost’ of being warm-blooded, because warm-blooded… bloodiness requires a consistently high food intake to maintain a high metabolism.
He added: “It is quite possible that there was a shift in the ecological landscape due to climatic cooling that led to a decline in seal numbers and altered the marine environment in which the populations of the food species on which megalodons depended, such as such as marine mammals.” , may have run out, leading to the demise of Megalodon.