A whole ecosystem exists down there according to the film, but there’s no evidence that a thermocline exists or ever did exist says Sues. First things first: If you check out the Wiki for The Meg movie, it lists the mondo, cartilaginous fish as having a length of about 75 feet. These include whales and dolphins, walruses and sea lions, seals and sea otters, manatees and dugongs — even polar bears. “Maybe two out of 10 if I’m feeling generous,” he told ScienceMag.org. dorsal     The back of something, usually an animal. Here’s a question that probably popped into your head while watching the trailer for The Meg: How gigantically freakin’ huge is that massive behemoth of a prehistoric shark exactly?

The megalodons are in grey and red.

Besides, when Megalodons were around, they inhabited warm, coastal waters, and their bodies were not adapted for deep ocean living.

Note: We’re only speculating about the Meg in the movie with these numbers, we’re not taking into account any measurements that may have been written in the book. It was the largest shark that ever lived, with a length of around 18 metres and a mouth so wide you could easily swim into it without so much as brushing the bigger-than-your-hand teeth.

For starters, if you think that the shark in the movie is ludicrously huge, you're right. Sharks in general have between five and seven gills.

On the other hand, it’s actually a bit odd that the movie’s megalodons wouldn’t have evolved some significant differences from their prehistoric ancestors, Balk says. They might not have gone extinct, at the latest, until 1.5 million years ago, Balk says. That’s according to Catalina Pimiento, who as a biology doctoral candidate at the University of Florida told LiveScience.com: “When you have a very large organism like Megalodon, that can be very good or very bad.”. “That’s one of the reasons why we know megalodon’s definitely extinct. Maybe nearshore nursery sites vanished. What Hollywood gets wrong about sharks – according to an expert, Hammerheads are among 10 shark species set to come to the British coast.

The large shark has wriggled its way into popular imagination mainly due to its size. The great white is the closest modern relative to the ancient megalodons. squid     A member of the cephalopod family (which also contains octopuses and cuttlefish). That’s a scary thought, but take reassurance in the fact that the Megalodon is very much extinct, and there’s no chance of them coming back any time soon. Hydrothermal vents down in the movie’s trench supposedly keep its dark waters warm enough to support an ecosystem teeming with life. Sharks shed a lot of teeth throughout their lives. For more science/writing madness, feel free to follow me on Twitter (@evolveon). What moves within oceanic trenches more than 6,000 meters (3.7 miles) down is a true mystery.

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There are sharks that inhabit deep parts of the ocean.

Can The Meg rescue shark movies from Sharknado self-parody? hydrothermal vent     An opening at the bottom of the ocean or a lake where hot water emerges from deep inside Earth. sea     An ocean (or region that is part of an ocean). All rights reserved.

Our Favorite Shark Video Doesn’t Have Teeth or Blood, Just Beauty, MEGALODON Appears! In their moment of triumph, a second, much larger megalodon emerges, devouring The Wall and the dead megalodon and critically wounding Zhang as it destroys the ship.

In the film, the vent field is populated with many smaller species known to cluster around hydrothermal vents. It swims by expelling jets of water from beneath its head and then waving finlike tissue that is part of its mantle, a muscular organ. The researchers also looked at how these sharks’ proportions changed over their lifetime. Fringe's Parapsychology and Sleep Science are Slim on Facts. blue whale     A species of baleen whale (Balaenoptera musculus) that is the largest animal ever known to have existed. Founded in 2003, Science News for Students is a free, award-winning online publication dedicated to providing age-appropriate science news to learners, parents and educators. “Like the eye getting bigger” to see better, she says. The film suggests this trench extends more than 11,000 meters (6.8 miles) below the sea surface. But how large exactly? That means they move slowly, Balk says — much more slowly than the energetic predators of the movie. Why this be?

Or their prime prey might have disappeared when some marine mammals went extinct about 2.6 million years ago. And — spoiler alert! You can cancel at any time. 1719 N Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036, When physicians and veterinarians team up, all species benefit, A whale’s nearly four-hour-long dive sets a new record, Polluting microplastics harm both animals and ecosystems, Many student athletes face risk of concussions that heal slowly, COVID-19 risk linked to vaping, but addicted kids find it hard to stop, Learning what stresses queen bees could save their hives, Analyze This: Insect shells could help builders on Mars, Surviving Mars missions will take planning and lots of innovation, Ordinary paper turns into flexible human-powered keypad, ‘Frozen smoke’ could protect electronics from annoying static, Here’s what bats ‘see’ when they explore the world with sound, One hummingbird survives cold nights by nearly freezing stiff, Whales get a second life as deep-sea buffets. The very top of the food chain. — of course, the scientists inadvertently help the giant living fossils escape and head to the surface.

The megalodon, which had a solid 13 million-year run as king of the sea, went extinct around 3.6 million years ago. That’s the premise of The Meg, a flick which opened August 10. While they might not be able to really take on Megalodon one on one, the newcomers were able to cope with the colder waters. It is possible, though, that different Megalodon populations in different parts of the world differed in size. But for now, we’re 52.5 feet closer to unraveling the mysteries of this ancient beast. Which means that a megalodon the same length as an 88-foot-long Great White would have an extra 183,857 pounds of mass. Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction. But those figures were always estimates. So do we. After the researchers studied the build and size of five ecologically and physiologically similar surviving shark relatives (the shortfin mako, the longfin mako, the salmon shark, the porbeagle, and of course, the great white), they deduced that a 52.5-foot long megalodon likely had the following measurements: a 15.3-foot-long head, a 5.3-foot-tall dorsal fin, and a 12.6-foot-high tail. How do we know it’s only two-thirds? If the bodily proportions change from childhood to adulthood, that would make estimating Meg size a lot harder. You have permission to edit this article. The average adult member of this species could have spanned more than 10 meters (33 feet) and weighed 30 metric tons (66,000 pounds) or more. (Also, keep in mind that there are Blue Whales that weigh 300,000 pounds, so there’s plenty of precedence for sea creatures that size. The movie’s megalodons correctly have six gills, she notes. Depending on where you are in the food chain, the ratio of different forms of calcium will be different.

The largest shark to have ever lived was even larger than we thought. Like skates and rays, they belong to a group known as elasmobranchs. Examples include tropical reefs, rainforests, alpine meadows and polar tundra.

Well, just look at this anatomical scaling of a shark.

There has, however, been some discussion about whether the great white shark really is Megalodon’s closest cousin, leading to proposals to rename the Meg as Otodus megalodon. (v.) To attack and eat another species. mammal     A warm-blooded animal distinguished by the possession of hair or fur, the secretion of milk by females for feeding their young, and (typically) the bearing of live young.

Monster-size sharks in The Meg reach lengths of 20 to 25 meters (66 to 82 feet). Unlike lakes and streams, seawater — or ocean water — is salty. And the shape of their dorsal fin is, appropriately, modeled after the great white shark’s. Which means we can now measure the Meg to about 11 surfboards/12.38 cm, or 66 feet long. Fish and other water-dwelling animals use gills to breathe. (This is a gross oversimplification, changes in teeth and body size don’t need to map one to one, but you get the idea.). It’s not unheard of for animals to be declared extinct, only to reappear years later (known as ‘Lazarus species’), but were Megalodons swimming in our oceans, their preference for coastal waters means sightings would be inevitable, and their teeth would be washing up on shores – shark teeth don’t have roots and fall out easily. “They got the jaws and teeth right,” says Sues. “And that was the absolute largest,” Balk says. Viewers also see one giant squid. species     A group of similar organisms capable of producing offspring that can survive and reproduce. Jason Statham’s likely never faced off against such a formidable opponent. Let's nerd out over them together. She has bachelor’s degrees in geology and European history and a Ph.D. in marine geochemistry from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. That’s the highest bite force ever recorded for any animal that has lived, and “even the [Tyrannosaurus Rex] bite would be puny by comparison,” says Sues.

But for the sake of this little bit of research, let’s suppose that that number is a bit off. This is corroborated by calcium isotope analysis of its teeth. That still made them much longer than the length of the average great white shark, which tops out at around 5 to 6 meters (16 to 20 feet). World-Herald staff writer, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows diagnosed with COVID-19, This is Nebraska’s favorite ’90s movie, according to the hard science of Internet, Watch Now: Netflix raises subscription prices. Mariana trench     A deep, crescent-shaped canyon running along the Pacific Ocean floor east of the Philippines.