Megalodon - Master Of The Oceans - Alternative View

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Megalodon - Master Of The Oceans - Alternative View
Megalodon - Master Of The Oceans - Alternative View

Video: Megalodon - Master Of The Oceans - Alternative View

Video: Megalodon - Master Of The Oceans - Alternative View
Video: Нападение акулы (Мегалодон) - Мег: Монстр глубины (2018) - Момент из фильма 2024, March
Anonim

No one has ever seen Megalodon. Mainly because this giant shark went extinct about ten million years ago. For a long time it was not possible to meet the fossil remains of the monster - the shark's skeleton consists of cartilage, not bones, and therefore, after the death of the animal, it decomposes rather quickly. So all the images of the monster are nothing more than the assumptions and fantasies of researchers.

Head "from Niels Stensen"

The only evidence that the megalodon existed is its huge teeth, which are occasionally found in the fossilized rock. (By the way, the word “megalodon” is translated as “big tooth”).

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In ancient times, those who were lucky to find such a tooth were confident that some dragon had lost it, which only further strengthened people's belief in the existence of these mythical villains. Specially educated people argued that this was not a tooth, but the language of the dragon, however, they could not give serious facts to support their opinion.

Only in 1667, the Danish naturalist Niels Stensen, studying another find, suggested that dragons had nothing to do with it, and the tooth belongs to an equally terrible, but quite real giant shark that lived in the ocean many centuries ago. Comparing the size of the teeth of the existing sharks with the object of research, and carrying out the appropriate calculations, Stensen presented to the public a stunning image of the head of a megalodon, but the public in those days was more inclined to be interested in "living" dragons than some long-extinct shark, albeit a very big. Despite the cold reception, Stensen nevertheless wrote a book about the megalodon, placed his drawing there and published it in a rather modest edition. But the book did not make the expected impression, and soon was lost on the shelves of European libraries.

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Significant find

Once again, the megalodon aroused serious interest of researchers only in 1926. Then, on the territory of Belgium, a miraculously preserved spine of the monster was discovered. Of course, not all as a whole, but "only" 150 vertebrae (for comparison, a person has 33-35). The largest of the found vertebrae was 15.5 cm in diameter.

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Having spread out the find along its entire length, having finished painting the non-preserved but necessary vertebrae and other parts of the body, and completing this work with the head "from Stensen", the scientists froze in awe. Before them appeared in all its glory a gigantic monster - the largest shark that has ever lived on our planet.

The length of the monster was about 20 meters - like a train carriage, and its weight was up to 110 tons. A passenger car could easily enter his mouth.

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Of course, the researchers did not stop there and immediately decided to check: if a car is placed in the mouth of this shark, will it be able to chew it? Taking the closest relative of the megalodon, the great white shark, as a sample, the scientists created a computer model of the jaws of both creatures.

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The great white shark is known to have a jaw clenching force of two tons. Megalodon, as it soon turned out, had a bite force 6-10 times greater! These capacities are used in hydraulic scrap balers. So - yes, the Megalodon could easily "chew" the car.

Another thing is that with such dimensions, the fossil giant had no use at all to waste time chewing production. It is enough for him to simply pull out a piece of meat from the victim, calmly wait until it bleeds out, and then swallow it whole and go in search of new prey.

By the way, the researchers did not limit themselves to computer reconstruction of the megalodon jaw. There is a real model that is 2.1 m high and 2.7 m wide, containing 230 real teeth arranged in five rows. Today it is the most reliable model of the giant's jaw.

N. Trubinovskaya