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Megalodonwas the biggest predatory shark that ever live , and its young were also gargantuan ; at nativity , they were as self-aggrandising as the average basketball player .
How did bouncing baby megalodons fire their impressive embryonic growth ? They may have gobbled up their smaller siblings while still in the mother ’s uterus , a survival of the fittest strategy shared by some modernistic shark .
Megalodon probably gave birth to live young, as do the majority of modern sharks.
Researchers of late work out the size of it of megalodon baby by analyzing skeletal dodo of an adultOtodus megalodonthat measured about 30 feet ( 9 meter ) long when it died ( these monster shark could likely reach about 66 foot , or 20 MB ) . The scientists then looked at " growth rings " in pieces of the shark ’s preserved frame , like to the rings in tree trunks used to fix a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ’s geezerhood .
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Megalodon — and all shark , skate and rays — belong to a social class of fishes called Chondrichthyes , which have skeletons made of gristle rather than hard bone . out rubbery fish like megalodon and other megatooth sharks are therefore lie with mostly from their teeth , which were made of calcium and therefore go in the fossil record longer than these fishes ' touchy cartilaginous skeleton .
Identified annual growth bands in a vertebra of the extinct shark Otodus megalodon, along with hypothetical silhouettes of the shark at birth and death, each compared with size of a typical adult human.
But for the new study , published online Jan. 11 in the journalHistorical Biology , the authors essay a rare solicitation of 150 megalodon vertebrae whose cartilage had mineralized , " the only sensibly preserved vertebral editorial of the species in the entire populace , " they wrote .
Using computedX - raytomography ( CT ) scan , the scientists number 46 regularly - space growth band in three of the megalodon ’s vertebrae . They then applied a mathematical increment curve equation that ’s normally used to calculate growth pattern in modern shark , establish on growth bands in their spinal gristle , said lead author Kenshu Shimada , a professor of palaeobiology at DePaul University in Chicago and enquiry associate at the Sternberg Museum in Kansas .
Each annulus represented a yr of emergence , so the shark would have been about 46 years sure-enough when it die . By exercise backwards to the earliest growth hoop — the " band at birth " — the scientist count the shark ’s length as a newborn , estimating it to be around 6.6 feet ( 2 meters ) long — big than any have a go at it newborn sharks . While anterior studies had noted the mien of these rings in megalodon fossils , " no detailed analyses had been conducted prior to this raw study , " Shimada told Live Science in an electronic mail .
Such large infant would in all likelihood have been take over live , the bailiwick authors reported . Nourishing such enormous young would have carried high vigor costs for the mother , suggesting that her sister supplemented in - utero nutrient with a side helping of unborn sibling cannibalism , Shimada said .
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" Oophagy — ballock - eating — is a manner for a female parent to sustain its embryos for an prolonged period of time , " he explained . " The outcome is that , while only a few embryo per female parent will survive and originate , each embryo can become quite big at its birth . "
Examination of the vertebra ’s ring also revealed the shark probably grew slowly , with a more or less eminent outgrowth rate during its first seven years of living . base on the place between rings , the megalodon did n’t experience a rapid growth jet in its spring chicken as some brute do . Perhaps that ’s because it was already big enough at birth to compete for solid food and discourage piranha attacks , the study authors reported .
By unite the growth flight finding with datum about soundbox size in the largest do it individuals , the researchers reckon that megalodon shark may have lived to be at least 88 to 100 years quondam . However , this inferred life expectancy " remains rather theoretical and needs further probe , " Shimada allege .
Originally put out on Live Science .
