Would like to understand the scientific understanding that can be simply conveyed.
Thanks you.
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Scishow did a great video on this very question: [Why the Megalodon (Definitely) Went Extinct.](https://youtu.be/BTPcq2HczVY) In addition to the great points others have brought up about ZERO meg teeth found that are newer than at least 2,600,000 years old, lack of bite marks on animals, the sheer size explosion of whales that began *after* megs disappeared from the fossil record, the changes in the ocean over time…
Newer sharks like the Great White probably had a part to play too in being fast and poweful but with lower caloric needs than megs. Changes in ocean temperature, circulation, nd other factors also turned ip krill and plankton numbers towards the poles and whales successfully moved into those zones, which are less friendly temperature-wise to sharks.
Great whites don’t go lower than about 2,000 meters, and only go that low for a few days. Gigantic megs hiding out in benthic or abyssal depths would require some major evolutionary changes to adapt to the temperarure, immense pressure, and major food scarcity that prooobably wouldn’t let them remain so big. Suggesting they adapted to the even deeper, more scattered, and even more food-poor trenches is even more unlikely.
We knew about giant and colossal squid for ages before we found live ones thanks to the scars they left on whales, dead bodies found at the surface or washed up, and their hard beaks in predator stomachs as well as the recent (<2.6 million years old) fossil record. Like sharks and their teeth, beaks are the only long-term-friendly part of squid bodies. Yet we found them frequently enough.
Cealocanths survived unknown for so long because they only live in a few places, they stay in caves during the day and only come out at night, they don’t have hard frequently shed and replaced teeth like sharks do, don’t leave distinctive bite marks, don’t have the large caloric needs a large fish like megs do, usually stay no higher than about 150 meters down, and are much smaller than megs (2 meters vs at least 10 meters). Locals knew about the fish and were surprised anybody was shocked and excited by it because it is an unappetizing and disappiinting catch.
We also definitely do know more than 5% of the ocean, the 95% is hyperbolic and outdated at this point. We started really mapping the ocean floor very well in the 1950’s, and have even more thoroughly mapped it out by now, and have really ramped up ocean ecosystem study including of deeper depths over the past 20 years.
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