Megalodon Shark May Have Died Out Because It Refused To Pick On Someone Its Own Size

When you ’re the grownup shark that ’s ever lived , you ’d think you ’d be pretty confident take on all comers , but fresh enquiry reveals that the infamousCarcharocles megalodonpreferred to snack on small whales rather than larger target . According to the authors of a unexampled study , the massive shark ’s preference for bare canapes may have led to its extinction , as these miniature whales died off around 3 million yr , leaving megalodons with nothing to eat .

The investigator examined bite Simon Marks on fossils found off the seacoast of Peru , where they bring out the remains of some now - extinct gnome whales and sealing wax - like animal that appeared to be covered in cuts and grazes that fit utterly with the tooth of the megalodon .

Dating back to around 7 million years ago , the skull of one special specimen contains marker that strongly resemble the biting techniques used by modern slap-up white sharks on seals .

key out the find in the journalPalaeogeography , Palaeoclimatology , Palaeoecology , the field author say this provides exonerated grounds as to the feeding orientation of megalodons , and allow the first ever identification of a specific species that the shark prey upon , in the form of an ancient miniature giant calledPiscobalaena nana .

Like other similarly diminutive cetaceans , P. nanalived in warm coastal water , and died off around 3 million years ago when the onset of a glacial catamenia caused both water temperature and sea levels to drop . In their place , larger whales that were well conform to colder water came to eclipse .

give that the megalodon itselfbecame extinctjust 400,000 years after , the cogitation authors propose that its unfitness to take on these larger whale may have been among the major causes of thecolossal shark’sdemise .

Megalodon ’s unsuccessful person to predate on these whales was probably down to the fact that they were merely too big , coupled with the fact that they tended to transmigrate recollective distances to the cold feeding surface area around the polar regions , where the shark could n’t watch over them .