![]() ![]() Great White sharks – the big one that got away So where did the stories of megalodon's survival originate from, and what is the truth behind these claims? Several articles have been written with shark experts debunking these myths. This 1927 reconstruction is now thought to be about 30% too big, based on what we know about the teeth, but gives a good idea of the monstrous size of this shark. ![]() Reconstructed jaws of Carcharocles megalodon by the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Nonetheless, it seems to have sparked a lot of subsequent interest in whether or not such a shark could really out there. The recent Discovery Channel mockumentary about megalodon still being alive had a short disclaimer that it was fictional. It lived from about 16 million to 2.6 million years ago. Megalodon is known from its huge fossil teeth, the largest being 18 centimetres long, found nearly all around the globe in fossil marine deposits. Megalodon (meaning "big tooth") is really the vernacular name used for Carcharocles megalodon, an extinct relative of today's great white and mako sharks in the family Lamnidae. Web pages feature frightening movie clips claiming to show evidence that this gigantic fossil shark, once reaching around 17m in length, is still alive out there, perhaps living in deep seas where they escape detection. A quick Google search on "megalodon" brings up around 1.2 million hits about this monster prehistoric shark, made famous in the 2002 eponymous B-movie. It was certainly a big shark but there are tales of even bigger sharks lurking in our waters. ![]()
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