MEGALODON MAY NOT HAVE LOOKED LIKE GREAT WHITE SHARK FROM JAWS

We all know that if you are looking for a Megalodon then you're gonna need a bigger boat, but we've always thought they looked a lot like a much larger great white. Not so, says new research.

The monster-sized shark is long extinct, some 3.6 million years ago, but is set to surface on cinema screens again next year in The Meg 2, starring Jason Statham.

In it the giant fish resembles a great white shark, but scientists at DePaul University in Chicago are saying that long established look is now pure speculation.

Reconstruction of a full-scale Megalodon and a set of teeth at the Museo de la Evolución de Puebla in Mexico. Credit: Luis Alvaz

Love to prove that, wouldn't they? Get their name into Historical Biology, which is exactly where that new study has been published, in the international journal Historical Biology.

So little of the Megalodon’s remains have ever been found because all that is left behind is shark cartilage, which doesn't preserve as well as say dinosaur fossils.

How Megalodon looked in hot shark movie ‘The Meg’ (2018)

So, as the great white and Megalodon belonged to the same family of sharks, the Lamniforme shark order, it has always been presumed that they would have a family resemblence.

Newly restored by SFX genius Greg Nicotero and team, a full size Bruce The Shark resides the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

Phillip Sternes, a UCR organismal biologist and lead author of the study, said: "I encourage others to explore ideas about its body shape, and to search for the ultimate treasure of a preserved Megalodon fossil.

"All previously proposed body forms of Otodus megalodon should be regarded as speculations from the scientific standpoint."

Either way, Megalodon was big, had big teeth and was the biggest fish to have ever lived. In many ways there will always be continued discussion as we find out more through science and paleontology, just like we continue to find out new things about dinosaurs.

DePaul University paleobiologist Kenshu Shimada holds a tooth of an extinct shark Otodus megalodon, or the so-called “Meg” or megatooth shark. (DePaul University/Jeff Carrion)

Rest assured the Megalodon in The Meg 2 won't be undergoing a radical makeover, the great white shark on steroids look is already ingrained in our consciousness.

Words by Dean Newman

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