How do we know the megalodon is extinct if we explored less than 5% of the ocean?
In: 2002
Animals don’t simply exist. They have a role in their ecosystem. They need things and they affect things. Large predators have a massive effect on their ecosystems, their presence is clear even if you never see them.
Megalodon effectively evolved to target large prey like small whales, large turtles and similar creatures. And that leaves a mark. We have tons of evidence of megalodon’s effect on their environment, for example, whale bones with scars made by megalodon teeth.
All of that evidence simply ceases to show up after a certain point in time. Unless these sharks suddenly got really good at hiding the evidence of their existence, it’s unlikely they’re still around somewhere.
So you could say, but what if it’s hiding somewhere in the deep sea? Well, the entire ecosystem it needs to exist would also have to be hiding down there. The deep-sea is a place of extreme scarcity. The organisms adapted to exist there tend to be very slow, energy-efficient ambush predators. That’s not a place for a gigantic active hunter.
But perhaps a better indicator is how much things changed when signs of megalodon disappeared. Being too big often isn’t an advantage for prey animals, it makes them easier targets. But as soon as all signs of megalodon disappeared, its prey animals started to diversify and grow bigger.
The large whales we have today would have never thrived in a world that still had megalodon in it.
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