The Megalodon was one of the grandest predators that the ocean has ever seen. For more than 14 million years, he reigned supreme in the coastal seas of our planet. But no one’s power lasts forever. About 1.6 million years ago, the megalodon suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. His younger relative, the great white shark, remained with us, and continues to evoke fear, admiration and curiosity. The mystery of the extinction of the megalodon and the survival of the great white is one of the great mysteries of paleontology.
Is it possible to get closer to solving it?
Megalodon teeth are found all over the world - in Europe, Africa, North and South America, India, Indonesia, Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. In other words, the megalodon was a cosmopolitan species. Such species with a wide, or, as scientists say, worldwide distribution are much less dependent on environmental changes than species with limited ranges. Under the influence of adverse changes, several local populations may disappear, but the rest of them are likely to remain. Apparently, the powerful predator fell prey to several unfavorable factors at once, some of which had far-reaching consequences.
… Fffu-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo !!! A plume of spray and steam shot up into the sky. Fresh air filled the mighty lungs, and the shining back of the whale, briefly appearing on the surface, disappeared into the waves again. Fff-oo-oo-oo-oo! Fff-y-y-y-xxxx !!! - noisily exhaled near relatives, and the waves closed and parted over their glossy bodies. A small group of ancient whales slowly skirted the shallow water.
Peaceful giants exchanged ringing trills, habitually listening to the sea and the voices of other whales coming from afar. A large old male brought up the rear of the procession, and it seemed that there was no such force in the world that could stop the movement of his huge 10-meter body. The powerful tail - a perpetual motion machine - tirelessly rose and fell, pushing the whale through the emerald water column, the pectoral fins - the rudders, bending over, regularly brought the sea giant's back to the surface for a new breath.
And suddenly a mighty jerk shook the sea giant. A sharp pain burned her tail. Keith screamed! His tail moved faster, but it almost did not increase the speed. A third of the left tail blade was missing, and a huge wound left a bloody plume. The whales, talking anxiously, turned into the open sea. Losing blood and weakening, the old male lagged behind. The last thing he saw was a colossal shadow, rapidly approaching him. Another dash, and the whale's tail was enveloped in a bloody cloud. A minute later, the monstrous mouth closed on the pectoral fin of the whale. He was immobilized, he choked, he screamed! And someone, even more huge, inexorably attacked again and again, pulling out and swallowing pieces of still living meat …
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Megalodon is the most famous of all the fossil sharks, familiar to most of us by its colossal triangular teeth, sometimes reaching 18 (!) Cm in length and up to 400 g in weight. It's hard to believe that these massive stones were once teeth. Holding such a "tooth" in your hand, it is impossible not to try to imagine what the "fish" itself was. By the way, its name is translated from Latin as “huge tooth”. The dimensions are amazing and frightening. Megalodon is one of the largest predators that has ever existed on our planet. It is second only to the sperm whale, surpassing many other whales and all known land-based predators of the past and present. Giants, and even more so, giant predators, have always aroused interest, and at the same time reverent awe. How much has been written about the lion, the crocodile and the tyrannosaurus!What do we know about Megalodon? It turns out - very little. We can't even imagine how he looked. The cartilaginous skeleton of sharks in a fossil state is practically not preserved. All scientists have at their disposal are teeth. Thousands of huge teeth …
The world in which the megalodon appeared was very different from the one he left. The changes that have occurred on our planet over the 14 million years of its existence have been great. The continuing drift of continents changed the face of the seas and the continents themselves. During the Oligocene epoch, Africa approached Europe, and only the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian and Aral seas remained from the huge sea basin between them. In the Miocene, the Indian subcontinent slammed into Asia and, as it continued to push, helped shape the Himalayas.
The Rocky Mountains and the Andes rose to the sky. Geological processes on a planetary scale influenced the atmospheric circulation, changed the direction of the winds and the nature of the distribution of precipitation. The cooling that began in the early Oligocene reduced the average annual air temperature in mid-latitudes to 15 ° C, and by the end of the Miocene (10 million years ago) the largest glaciation began at the Earth's poles. This led to the fact that the sea level dropped by several million years, primarily reducing the area of shallow coastal seas. Thus, the movement of continents, a decrease in temperature and a decrease in ocean area could significantly reduce the areas suitable for habitation of the megalodon.
The Atlantic continued to expand, and one of the consequences of the displacement of the tectonic plates forming its bottom was the slowing down of the Gulf Stream. This, in turn, gradually reduced the volume of cold, substance-rich water rising to the surface off the shelf of the southeastern part of North America and, therefore, could not but affect the diversity and number of organisms inhabiting these areas. It is the intensity of upwelling (the rise of deep waters in the seas and oceans, causing significant cooling of the sea surface) that provides the richness of life in many areas of the ocean. The disappearance of the cetotheriids (early baleen whales) and the extinction of the megalodon are not just coincidences. Less plankton - less baleen whales. Whales disappeared - food for the megalodon disappeared. By the way, one should speak about the disappearance of whales with a reservation.
It would be more accurate to say that they left for more productive areas, that is, in cold waters, where most of their descendants live today. Excavations show that, for example, in Antarctica, whales appeared precisely in the late Pliocene, that is, when the megalodon died out.
For a week now, a team of diving archaeologists have been working on the Cooper River north of Charleston, South Carolina. They looked for everything that could have scientific interest - from animal bones to artifacts from the Civil War. The main attention was paid to the whirlpools. It is difficult to work in them, but it was here that one could count on finds. Already several boxes with samples were packed and were waiting to be sent to the Institute of Archeology. A couple more days, and I have to go home. The summer of 1974 was drawing to a close.
Returning to the Institute, the archaeologist poured the finds on the table. Giant fossil triangles gleamed mattly on its white surface. As in childhood, laying out a drawing of black stones on white sand, Patrick began to arrange his teeth in size. It so happened that soon an ominous semicircle formed from them. Then the ring closed. Huge black jaws lay on a white table. The size was shocking. What if…? Sure! Patrick was aware of the famous reconstruction of the Megalodon's mouth on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The teeth that were used to create it were collected around these locations. And if you create a similar layout yourself?
The director of the Institute took one look to understand McCarthy's idea. The next year, the entire group of underwater archaeologists collected the teeth of ancient monsters. Those with the best preservation were given to museums or sold to collectors to recoup the cost of the underwater work. Together with one of his friends, Patrick collected all the data available at that time on the teeth and jaws of ancient and modern sharks, and made the first model of the Megalodon mouth, which consisted of fiberglass jaws 1.5 m high and 1.8 m wide, and contained 175 real teeth. … It is now on display at the South Carolina State Museum.
Over the 20 years that have passed since that time, Patrick has created several dozen models of Megalodon's jaws, constantly improving the technique of their manufacture, and, most importantly, their compliance with the latest scientific data. To date, the most reliable model is 2.1 m high and 2.7 m wide, and contains 5 rows of teeth with a total of 230. Impressive?
Carcharodon or Carcharocles?
Megalodon's fossilized teeth closely resemble the teeth of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), which in turn is the largest predatory fish of our time. The differences, however, also abound (the teeth of Megalodon, for example, are much thicker, and the notches on their edges are smaller and more correct than on the teeth of the great white). However, some paleontologists believe that the difference gradually fades with age, and the teeth of the largest specimens of the white shark become very similar to those of their giant fossil counterpart. This similarity has led to the existence of two points of view on the degree of kinship of the two monsters. Some scholars suggest that Megalodon and the White Death are close relatives, and therefore should be included in the genus Carcharodon together. Their opponents findthat the similarity in the structure of teeth is extremely superficial, acquired due to a similar lifestyle, and the “scary couple” are two independent lines in the pedigree of sawtooth sharks. For this reason, they include Megalodon in the genus Carcharocles. This dispute is long-standing, and there is no end in sight - there are too many gaps in our knowledge about ancient sharks. However, proponents of different viewpoints agree on the following points:
(1) Megalodon existed relatively “recently”, appearing in the seas 16 and disappearing 1.6 million years ago;
(2) he was not a direct ancestor of the great white shark.
Reconstructing Megalodon
So, stone teeth are almost all that remains of the colossal predator. By the way, teeth of fossil sharks can be of almost any color - there are black, gray, purple, blue, green, brown, red, pink, orange, yellow, beige, almost white - depending on the chemical composition of the sediments in which they are found. People have known them for a long time, and Pliny wrote that they fall to earth during lunar eclipses.
Did you know that Megalodon's teeth became the first paleontological object described and depicted in the scientific literature? In 1667, the court physician of the Duke of Tuscany, Niels Stensen (Steno), published a small pamphlet entitled "Description of the severed head of a shark", in which, in addition to accurately describing and depicting the head of Great White, he described and painted the so-called "stone tongues" (glossopetrae). For centuries, these smooth triangular stones have been found in talus on the island of Malta. Many, considering them to be fossilized snake tongues that Saint Paul turned to stone during a visit to this island, used Megalodon's teeth as talismans against the bites of venomous reptiles. So Steno, who for this reason should be considered the first paleontologist, noted the similarity between the teeth of a great white shark and glossopetra, and suggested that the latter are nothing else,like the teeth of ancient sharks.
The obvious way to start the Megalodon reconstruction is to place them on a skeleton that mimics the cartilaginous skeleton of a shark's jaw. Two questions immediately arise - how big were the jaws and how many teeth did they hold? Based on the similarity with the white shark, whose teeth are 3 times smaller, it seems quite natural to extrapolate the main proportions of the modern predator to Megalodon. The curators of natural history museums did just that at first. The first model of his jaws in the early twentieth century was made by Professor Bashford Dean from the aforementioned American Museum of Natural History in New York. Standing next to such a model, one cannot help but shudder: the jaws are 3.4 m high and 2.75 m wide! A rhinoceros will slip by - will not stay! In the famous photograph taken in the New York Museum, 6 people fit in the opening of the Megalodon's plaster jaws! Based on the size of the monstrous mouth,the length of its owner was estimated at 25-30 meters !!! Is it any wonder that museum models of the Megalodon's jaws are still among the most popular exhibits.
However, how big was this unique creature really? The height of the largest teeth in the mouth of a great white shark is equal to the height of its upper jaw. The early models of the Megalodon's jaws were made without taking into account this proportion: the height of the upper jaw in them is three times the height of the teeth. There is one more dependence: the length of the part of the white shark's tooth that is covered with enamel is proportional to the length of its body. If we proceed from the fact that Megalodon was an enlarged "big white", then its dimensions should not have exceeded 13 m.
Where did the myth of the 25-meter monster come from? Why was such a mistake made when creating the first reconstructions? And the fact is that these models were built using teeth of approximately the same size that belonged to different copies of Megalodon. At the same time, the teeth of all modern sawtooth sharks are significantly reduced in size towards the corners of the mouth. If this feature is not taken into account, then the shark's mouth will turn out to be much larger.
In fact, a T-rex would have been a quick snack for megalodon
In 1992, American paleontologist John Macy was given the opportunity to study a relatively complete set of Megalodon teeth found in a North Carolina quarry. Using the proportions mentioned above, as well as his own research on shark teeth and jaws, Macy created a new model of the fossil monster's jaws that were 1.8m across, and thus matched a 12m shark. The megalodon "shrank" even more, although not made it less scary.
However, a few years later, data appeared, according to which the teeth of a great white shark cease to grow when it reaches a length of 5 meters. In other words, 5, 6 and 7 meter white sharks have teeth of the same size. It is likely that Megalodon had the same characteristics. A new approach to calculating the magnitude of a shark fossil has given a new approximation. To date, the maximum length of this monster is estimated at 15-20 m and weighs 48 tons. For comparison, the largest white shark measured measured 7.1 m and weighed 2.3 tons. The dorsal fin of Megalodon reached 1.7 m, the pectorals - 3.1 m, and the height of the tail - 3.8 m. It is not difficult to imagine a shark with a length of 3 m. But what about a shark, which has a 3 m body diameter, and from the tip of one pectoral fin to the tip of another - more than 9 m ?! It's a small plane!Note, by the way, that the females of most sharks are noticeably larger than the males. So, speaking of the 15-meter Megalodon, we mean Megalodonikha.
All of the above methods of reconstructing a fossil monster are based on its remains. However, there is another way to measure the "unmeasurable". Sharks breathe through their gills. The rate of gas exchange through their surface depends on the temperature of the water and the concentration gradient of gases dissolved in water and shark blood. Since with an increase in the surface area of the body, its volume increases in a cube, it is possible to roughly calculate the size of the Megalodon's body, which its gills were able to provide with oxygen. These calculations gave approximately the same figures - 15.1 m.
In the flesh, the Megalodon supposedly had a relatively taller and wider skull than the great white shark, a shorter, blunt snout, and more massive jaws. As the jokers say, Megalodon "was a pig on his face." It also had more vertebrae, and the pectoral fin was proportionally longer. In other words, Megalodon was more powerful, and, if I may say so in relation to cartilaginous fish, “wider-boned”. A kind of big white "on steroids" version.
There is, however, another opinion (considered almost heretical), also based on a comparison of teeth and reconstruction of shark pedigree. In accordance with them, Megalodon looked more like not the White Death, but one of the species of nurse sharks (Odontaspis taurus), also called the “sand tiger”. Don't be surprised, in science paradoxical points of view can be extremely useful. They allow you to look at things from an unexpected angle and re-evaluate stereotypes.
The rise and flowering of Megalodon
The great white shark next to Megalodon was the crocodile next to Godzilla - a miniature and much less sinister variation on the same theme. It is interesting that for almost 10 million years, these two species were contemporaries. How did the "small" and worse-armed white shark manage to survive in the shadow of its monstrous relative, surviving safely to this day, while Megalodon became extinct?
The history of life on our planet is the history of ecosystems, and paleoecology is the science that restores what they were and how they functioned. According to the remains of living organisms found together in some sediments, as well as the content of isotopes of certain elements in them, paleontologists, as from pieces of ancient smalt, collect a mosaic picture - the appearance of ecosystems of the past: the composition of biological communities (flora and fauna) and the conditions in which they existed (local climate, water salinity, etc.). Geologists supplement this mosaic with data on the position and outlines of ancient seas and continents, the state of the land and seabed relief and their changes, together with paleooceanographers, they restore the picture of ancient ocean currents. Since the remains of fossil sharks are represented almost exclusively by teeth,then it is difficult to reconstruct the features of their life. Nevertheless, knowledge about their modern relatives helps us in this.
Most sharks are predators with a wide range of food items that also do not disdain carrion. The shape and size of shark teeth (and not always the size of the body) clearly indicate their food preferences (otherwise, for us in the water, the whale shark would be the most nightmarish creature). The serrated, knife-shaped teeth are ideal for carving chunks of meat from prey too large to be swallowed whole. Thus, their owners form a special group of sharks. While sharks with thinner teeth without notches deal with prey in one piece, Megalodon and Great White are able to dismember even large animals to the state of such pieces. The type of teeth characteristic of these predators arose in their predecessors, at least in the early Eocene, that is, about 50 million years ago.
In those days, our planet was generally warmer, and in the place of many coastal areas stretched warm, shallow seas. It was in them that the first true marine mammals appeared. Ancient Archeocetes whales with shark-like teeth chased the mercury of silvery fish schools and jet squids, while ancient sea cows grazed in shallow sea meadows. The most appropriate time to enter the evolutionary scene of the great sawtooth shark.
And those appeared. According to the structure and size of teeth, paleontologists distinguish two groups, or, as scientists say, two lines of sawtooth sharks. The last of the line of sharks with giant teeth was Megalodon, the last of the group of sharks with "small" teeth was our contemporary, the great white shark.
The larger the teeth, the larger the prey. The giant teeth of Megalodon's ancestors are found, along with the bones of ancient whales, in the Middle Eocene sediments (45 million years ago). And this indicates that these sharks have been feeding on whales almost since the moment the latter appeared. The first baleen whales (Mysticeti) appeared in the seas of the late Oligocene (about 30 million years ago). One of the earliest groups among them were the Cetotheriidae, reaching a length of 3 to 10 meters and resembling modern gray whales. And after 14-15 million years, Megalodon appears, which was characterized by a special "tendency" to baleen whales: on the bones of their fins and caudal vertebrae found in the Miocene and Pliocene deposits (5 million years ago), often find deep cuts left by giant, triangular teeth. The traces of these wounds testifythat huge hunters were extremely effective at immobilizing their prey by biting off their pectoral and caudal fins.
There is, however, one more point of view. The mechanical characteristics of the Great White teeth, for example, their flexibility (fracture strength) and how deeply they take root in the jaw (as indicated by the size of the base of the tooth - "root"), indicate that its knife teeth are ideally suited to cut flesh but not crush bones. In addition, since the "roots" sit shallow in the jaw, the probability of losing a tooth while holding beating prey is quite high. Examination of the bodies of marine mammals that died from the bites of a great white shark showed that it prefers to grab sea lions, seals and dolphins by the “soft”, for example, the belly, and not by the fins, which also happens, but much less often. Great white sharks rarely fight large prey, preferring to wait until it dies from blood loss. Megalodon's teeth, although they look much thicker,and their "roots", when compared with the total length of the tooth, are much more powerful than those of the great white shark.
These are no longer knives, but rather axes. According to the American zoologist Bretton Kent, such teeth are adapted not only for cutting flesh (remember the notches on their edges), but also for holding prey. And besides, such a tooth will not break if it hits the bone. A detailed study of the 9-meter skeleton of an ancient whale that died as a result of the Megalodon attack revealed more than 70 monster teeth marks on the bones. Moreover, some damages, which outwardly look like large scratches and indentations, ideally correspond to the shape of the cross-section of the shark's tooth tip. Two-thirds of these injuries occur in the bones of the pectoral fins, the shoulder girdle, and the anterior vertebral column. Examination of other fossil whale skeletons revealed a similar pattern: Megalodon's teeth scars are more common on the bones of the thoracic region. Kent suggeststhat this superpredator attacked the victim, crushing the chest, and thus, in the first place, damaging the heart and lungs. Ax-teeth were the best suited for such attack tactics. True, the assumption that Megalodon, rather, immobilized its prey by biting off its fins, does not become less plausible from this either.
Bite force
In 2008, a team of scientists led by Stephen Uro conducted an experiment to determine the strength of a megalodon bite. According to his results, the bite force of the megalodon could reach 182,000 newtons, which is 28 times more than the bite force of the dunkleosteus (6.3 kN), more than 10 times that of the great white shark (18 kN), more than 5 times more than Tyrannosaurus rex (31 kN) and also more than Predator X (150 kN).
In the Late Oligocene (26 million years ago), almost at the same time when baleen whales appeared, another group of mammals appeared in the seas - pinnipeds. While this is likely, we do not yet have evidence that sawtooth sharks ate the first pinnipeds. But after the appearance of real seals (about 15 million years ago), they firmly entered the menu of the ancestors of the great white shark - two skeletons of fossil monk seals were found with damage caused by the "small" teeth of such an ancestor. In one of the bones a fragment is firmly stuck - the tip of a predator's tooth.
The teeth of young sharks are narrower and shorter than those of adults. Based on the finds of the bones of marine animals, young Megalodons fed on relatively small representatives of the group of toothed whales (Odontoceti) - dolphins and porpoises, which appeared in the late Oligocene. Together with the vertebrae of a fossil porpoise, whose skeleton was found in sediments of the Middle Miocene (about 14 million years ago), a 6.4 cm front tooth of a young Megalodon was discovered (recall that in adult specimens they reach 15 and even 18 cm). Likewise, young white sharks feed on fish and other sharks. They begin to hunt marine mammals only when they reach 3 meters in length.
Megalodon's teeth are found in sediments that accumulated on the bottom of shallow, warm seas located within the continental shelf. Upwelling zones are formed along the shelf periphery, where cool and substance-rich deep waters rise to the surface, giving life to the richest communities of marine organisms, ranging from plankton to mega-predators.
Substances lifted from the ocean floor are used by unicellular algae, numerous planktonic crustaceans and larvae of many other organisms feed on algae, and these, in turn, are directly or indirectly used by all other marine animals, including whales. It was in such conditions that cetaceans arose and reached their heyday, it was then that Megalodon appeared and existed. By the way, teeth of young Megalodons are more often found in coastal sediments, in areas close to upwelling zones, which indicates that these places could be used by female sea giants for breeding.
Fossil teeth of the great white shark appear in the deposits of the late Miocene (about 10 million years ago). However, they are rare in sediments from the bottom of warm seas. Most of the finds indicate that, unlike Megalodon, the Great White preferred cool waters. We do not have data on whether this is a consequence of the displacement of the white shark by Megalodon, but it is now clear that to say that the white shark lived in the shadow of its giant relative would be absolutely wrong. These two predators hunted different animals - Megalodon on cetaceans, white shark - on seals, and lived in different territories - Megalodon in warm water, Great White - in colder water.
The absence of teeth of the megalodon in the sediments of cool seas indicates that, unlike the great white shark, despite its huge mass, it was not able to maintain a constant body temperature, which means that it could not hunt in cold waters. In addition, observations of young Great Whites have shown that young sharks, unlike adults, can survive in rather limited temperature ranges: they are less resistant to cool water and do not tolerate warm water well. If this was also true of the megalodon, then during the Ice Age, warm shallow seas were the only place suitable for its existence.
Tropical waters are much poorer than cool waters, which means they potentially have less food. A decrease in the intensity of upwelling in the western part of the North Atlantic by the end of the Pliocene (1.6 million years ago) could lead to the fact that the waters in which the megalodon lived in this part of the planet ceased to supply it with sufficient food. On top of all the troubles, the reduction of coastal waters and a decrease in water temperature, where juveniles of the megalodon developed, could be expressed in an increased risk of meeting 4-meter "fry" with killer whales that appeared at that time. Thus, the habitat change hit the megalodon from both sides: the adult predators were too large to get enough food for themselves, and its juveniles were too small not to become food for other predators.
Lord's sunset
By the way, what caused the extinction of the megalodon could have contributed to the appearance of you and me, that is, a man. The rise of the ocean floor between the Americas led to the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, which divided the Pacific and the Atlantic. It is possible that this barrier has become a serious obstacle on the path of the megalodon from one hemisphere to another. According to the hypothesis proposed by the American paleontologist Stephen Stanley, the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama radically changed the nature of the deep circulation of oceanic waters on the planet. Warm currents, having changed direction, ceased to bring enough heat to the Arctic, as a result of which the Northern Hemisphere cooled greatly.
Approximately 3.5 million years ago, our planet entered the period of successive eras of cooling (glaciation) and warming (retreat of glaciers), which continues to this day. The Ice Age, accompanied by a decrease in moisture in the atmosphere, also affected Africa. The disappearance of forests in its eastern part led to the fact that our ape-like ancestors were forced to "get off the tree." And the few that survived gave rise to the human race. It turns out that what became a disaster for the Megalodon could turn out to be a boon for us.
If this was true of Megalodon, then during the Ice Age, warm shallow seas were the only place suitable for its existence. However, tropical waters are significantly poorer in substances compared to cool ones, which means they potentially have less food. A decrease in the intensity of upwelling in the western part of the North Atlantic by the end of the Pliocene (1.6 million years ago) could lead to the fact that the waters in which Megalodon lived in this part of the planet stopped supplying him with sufficient food.
On top of all the troubles, the reduction in coastal waters and a decrease in water temperature, where juveniles of Megalodon developed, could be expressed in an increased risk of meeting 4-meter “fry” with killer whales that appeared at that time. Thus, the habitat change hit the Megalodon from both sides: the adult predators were too large to get enough food for themselves, and its juveniles were too small not to become food for other predators.
However, what caused the extinction of Megalodon could have contributed to the appearance of you and me, that is, a person. The raising of the ocean floor between the Americas led to the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, which divided the Pacific and the Atlantic. It is possible that this barrier became a serious obstacle on the path of Megalodon from one hemisphere to another. In accordance with the hypothesis proposed by the American paleontologist Stephen Stanley, the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama radically changed the nature of the deep circulation of oceanic waters on the planet. Warm currents, having changed direction, have ceased to bring enough heat to the Arctic, as a result of which the northern hemisphere has cooled significantly. Approximately 3.5 million years ago, our planet entered the period of alternating eras of cooling (glaciation) and warming (retreat of glaciers),which continues to this day.
We are unlikely to ever know the exact reasons for the extinction of the megalodon (by the way, we will be grateful to him for this). Reduction and disruption of the range, lack of food or increased vulnerability of young animals - all this could play a role. Another combination of negative factors is also possible. There is an assumption that the megalodon lost the competition in speed to the rapidly evolving whales. The great white shark nevertheless survived, and it is likely that this was made possible by its smaller size and ability to thrive in food-rich, cold waters. This does not mean that the white shark is less vulnerable. Like other sharks, it reaches maturity late and gives birth to a small number of offspring. Such a strategy is justified only under very stable external conditions with a minimum number of natural enemies. However, nature has not endowed sharks with the opportunity to compete with the most perfect and dangerous predator that has ever existed on our planet. Alas, it is quite possible that their main trouble is to live at the same time with us …