The megalodon was the largest fish to ever swim in Earth’s oceans. Longer than a school bus and with a fin taller than a seventh-grader, the fearsome beast went extinct 3.6 million years ago. So biologists like Kenshu Shimada at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, have to do some serious science to study these prehistoric animals.
The megalodon belongs to a group called Lamniformes, which includes species like mako, goblin, basking, and great white sharks. It was the only supersized shark that didn’t eat plankton, which are small microscopic organisms that live in the ocean. Many of the largest sharks feed on plankton, including whale sharks—the largest alive today.
The megalodon was the largest fish to ever swim in Earth’s oceans. It was longer than a school bus, and its fin was taller than a seventh-grader! But the fearsome beast went extinct 3.6 million years ago. So biologists like Kenshu Shimada at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, have to get crafty to study it.
The megalodon is related to living species like mako, goblin, basking, and great white sharks. But it was far bigger than those animals—and even bigger than whale sharks, the largest fish alive today. Many of the largest living sharks eat plankton, microscopic organisms that live in the ocean. But the megalodon didn’t. It hunted much bigger prey.