Raiders of the Lost Shark Trivia Quiz

Answer: Giant tooth

Megalodon is the species of giant sharks that lived millions of years ago, but seems to have died out somewhere between 1.5 and 3.6 million years ago, the best guess being around 2.6 million years ago. In Greek, the name 'megalodon' means 'giant tooth'. The best evidence for megalodon is the giant tooth fossils that have been found that prove its existence.

Answer: False

Megalodon, while living millions of years ago, was not a contemporary of the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago, missing out on meeting megalodon by approximately 38 million years; the earliest megalodon remains were found from approximately 28 million years ago. A long time ago, but not as long ago as the dinosaurs existed.

Answer: 10.5 meters, or, about the height of a standard telephone pole

While the megalodon is estimated to be larger than any modern sharks, it's really not by that much. As mentioned, the great white sharks average 6.5 meters, while the average whale shark (today's largest fish) average 9.7 meters in length. Though this is an average estimate, there are some researchers that assert that the maximum length of a megalodon could have been up to 25 or even 30 meters.

However an interesting 2002 study I read by paleontologist Kenshu Shimada estimated that the megalodon was probably around 15 meters.

When he revisited the study in 2019, he re-estimated the length to be between 14.2 and 15.3 meters long. Still, a pretty big fish.

Answer: Lateral denticles

Megalodon teeth have been the best way to study the megalodon. A nearly complete set of teeth was discovered in Saitama, Japan in 1989 allowing for more accurate jaw estimations. The teeth are triangular in shape and all of them with a fine serration.

They are much larger than the great white shark's teeth and convex on the inside, and convex or flat on the outside of the tooth. They do not have lateral denticles and attached to the jaw at an angle implying that the megalodon could open its mouth pretty wide.

Answer: Eight times as much

If you can believe it, a megalodon's bite would have been able to crush a small car. However, it is also likely that that sort of bite would have broken all of the megalodon's teeth in the process. A great white shark exerts about 18,000 Newtons of force, while the megalodon is estimated to have exerted between 109,000 and 182,000 Newtons of force, meaning somewhere between six and ten times as strong.

While impressive, and probably the strongest estimated bite force ever, nothing nearly close to what was depicted in the movie "The Meg".

Answer: They were born in shark nurseries

Like modern sharks, it is highly likely that megalodon gave birth to its young in designated areas called nurseries. Since lamniform sharks, a family including the great white shark and megamouth sharks, give birth to live offspring, the megalodon, being a not-so-distant ancestor, probably did too. Baby megalodons were probably around 3.5 meters in length (yes, even the babies were much larger than a human) and probably fed on smaller prey which they hunted on their own.

Areas at sea like the Miocene Gatún Formation of Panama, Banco de Concepción in the Canary Islands, the Bone Valley Formation of Florida, and the Calvert Formation of Maryland were all likely shark nurseries. The Panamanian site was the first discovered (and documented in 2010) with many juvenile megalodon teeth found in a high concentration. The Calvert Formation fossils are the oldest of the four sites.

Answer: True

Since the megalodon was an extinct species of shark, its skeletal structure was cartilaginous. Cartilage does not fossilize, it decomposes, and the only bones that remained from the megalodon were fossilized teeth and fossilized vertebrae from the spinal column. The only other verified remains found were coprolites (fossilized droppings) and the rest is just conjecture.

Answer: Antarctica

Megalodon was a warm-water shark though it is assumed to have been "partially warm-blooded", meaning, the shark could generate its own heat while swimming. Nevertheless, based on the distribution of megalodon teeth, vertebrae, and coprolites, megalodon had a worldwide habitat, and could be found in all of the seas around the world.

In the Neogene Period, when megalodon was around, Antarctica was already situated at the southern pole of the world and megalodon would have found this climate just too cold.

Answer: False

Megalodon helped shape the face of marine life as a massive apex predator with powerful jaws and razor-sharp teeth. However, megalogon was not alone. There were other apex predators roaming the seas at the same time, and megalodon had competition. Some contemporary species to the megalodon were the macroraptorial sperm whales, a group of carnivorous whales that were both large and also group hunters.

The significant member of that group would probably be "Livyatan melvillei", a giant toothed whale named after the Biblical Leviathan and Herman Melville, the author of "Moby-Dick".

Answer: Closure of the Central American Seaway

Megalodon seems to have died out approximately 3 million years ago. At that time, extreme volcanic activity between South America and North America (which were separate) caused what is now Panama to rise up from the ocean. The closure of the Central American Seaway caused many changes in the marine biodiversity and ocean currents. At that time, the surface temperature of the oceans actually began to cool off, and there was an extinction in some species believed to be food sources for megalodon.

There was, as far as evidence can tell, no significant impact of a meteor. As for the great white shark, it appeared 16 million years ago, so, it lived for about ten million years in the same waters as megalodon did (and was probably eaten by it occasionally).