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Description
10 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch of what is now the Gatún Formation of Panama, a rather shallow lagoon is being used as a nursery for the largest macropredatory animal of the time. The giant shark Carcharocles/ Otodus megalodon can grow up to 16 meters long, and even their newborns are already 2 meters long at birth. However, the seas of the Miocene are also home to many other fierce predators and megalodon mothers give birth near shallower bays and lagoons, where the baby sharks will spend the early years of their lives hunting large fish, sirenians and more until they grow larger when they will venture out into the open ocean. But even in the comparative safety of the lagoon, there are still predators able to reach the megalodon pups. A massive, 5-meter long great hammerhead Sphyrna mokarran, has swam into one of these megalodon nurseries in search of prey and has managed to kill a 3-meter long megalodon pup, tearing it apart and eating chunks of its flesh. This one isn't gonna become a whale killer.

Just one more drawing for Shark Week. Inspired by some fossil discoveries at the Gatún Formation of Panama, where fossil teeth of the famous giant shark Otodus/ Carcharocles megalodon have been found. I'm not even gonna introduce megalodon a lot, you probably already know what it is. While teeth of megalodon are found across the world, what's special about these is that they are much smaller than megalodon teeth found elsewhere, suggesting this are was once a "nursery" for the sharks. Similar nurseries are used by extant lemon sharks, whose young spend their early years living in shallower mangrove swamps before swimming out into open ocean. It would make sense for megalodon to use such nurseries as their young, while still quite big from birth, would have been quite vulnerable to the many big predators of the Miocene seas like raptorial sperm whales.

However, the Gatún Formation has also yielded the fossil teeth of some other large sharks. Among these, some teeth have been found to belong to Sphyrna mokarran, commonly known as the great hammerhead, a species that still exists today. Great hammerheads commonly grow 3 to 4.6 meters long, with some exceptionally large individuals known to reach a length of 6 meters, so they could well have posed a threat to baby megalodons. It is possible that the hammerheads would enter these meg nurseries which would have been too shallow for killer sperm whales to enter but deep enough for a hammerhead and then prey on the meg pups. Considering what the hammerheads of the 21st century eat I would find this quite plausible, they seem to have a preference for eating other cartilaginous fish. They eat mainly stingrays and smaller sharks. Seems that while adult megalodon were possibly the largest macropredatory animals ever and hunted whales commonly, their young were preyed on by much smaller (but still big) sharks. Unfortunately great hammerheads are now a critically endangered species that is greatly sought after for shark fin soup (one of the most bullshit soups where sharks get their fins sawed off while they are still alive and thrown back into the sea to bleed out just so someone can flex that they're rich enough to afford shark fin) and while they still exist now, they could sadly join the megalodon into extinction within my lifetime. They're not even gone yet and I already miss them.

I know I know, the size of megalodon is an annoying topic that will spark wars once mentioned. Estimates throughout the years have ranged from 10 tp 20 meters but I took the 16-meter estimate off a 2020 study that used proportions of some extant sharks to guess its size and body proportions (this one www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic… ). For those who still believe that 30-meter length stated in The Meg, that's definitely way exaggerated. Also the genus megalodon belongs in is also a bit of a controversial topic so I just went with Carcharocles/ Otodus. And I didn't even bother to put "megalodon" in italics anymore because at this point that's just its common name.

If anyone fucking comments that megalodon is still alive and links "proof" I will make the end-Permian extinction look like a joke.

Description
10 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch of what is now the Gatún Formation of Panama, a rather shallow lagoon is being used as a nursery for the largest macropredatory animal of the time. The giant shark Carcharocles/ Otodus megalodon can grow up to 16 meters long, and even their newborns are already 2 meters long at birth. However, the seas of the Miocene are also home to many other fierce predators and megalodon mothers give birth near shallower bays and lagoons, where the baby sharks will spend the early years of their lives hunting large fish, sirenians and more until they grow larger when they will venture out into the open ocean. But even in the comparative safety of the lagoon, there are still predators able to reach the megalodon pups. A massive, 5-meter long great hammerhead Sphyrna mokarran, has swam into one of these megalodon nurseries in search of prey and has managed to kill a 3-meter long megalodon pup, tearing it apart and eating chunks of its flesh. This one isn't gonna become a whale killer.

Just one more drawing for Shark Week. Inspired by some fossil discoveries at the Gatún Formation of Panama, where fossil teeth of the famous giant shark Otodus/ Carcharocles megalodon have been found. I'm not even gonna introduce megalodon a lot, you probably already know what it is. While teeth of megalodon are found across the world, what's special about these is that they are much smaller than megalodon teeth found elsewhere, suggesting this are was once a "nursery" for the sharks. Similar nurseries are used by extant lemon sharks, whose young spend their early years living in shallower mangrove swamps before swimming out into open ocean. It would make sense for megalodon to use such nurseries as their young, while still quite big from birth, would have been quite vulnerable to the many big predators of the Miocene seas like raptorial sperm whales.

However, the Gatún Formation has also yielded the fossil teeth of some other large sharks. Among these, some teeth have been found to belong to Sphyrna mokarran, commonly known as the great hammerhead, a species that still exists today. Great hammerheads commonly grow 3 to 4.6 meters long, with some exceptionally large individuals known to reach a length of 6 meters, so they could well have posed a threat to baby megalodons. It is possible that the hammerheads would enter these meg nurseries which would have been too shallow for killer sperm whales to enter but deep enough for a hammerhead and then prey on the meg pups. Considering what the hammerheads of the 21st century eat I would find this quite plausible, they seem to have a preference for eating other cartilaginous fish. They eat mainly stingrays and smaller sharks. Seems that while adult megalodon were possibly the largest macropredatory animals ever and hunted whales commonly, their young were preyed on by much smaller (but still big) sharks. Unfortunately great hammerheads are now a critically endangered species that is greatly sought after for shark fin soup (one of the most bullshit soups where sharks get their fins sawed off while they are still alive and thrown back into the sea to bleed out just so someone can flex that they're rich enough to afford shark fin) and while they still exist now, they could sadly join the megalodon into extinction within my lifetime. They're not even gone yet and I already miss them.

I know I know, the size of megalodon is an annoying topic that will spark wars once mentioned. Estimates throughout the years have ranged from 10 tp 20 meters but I took the 16-meter estimate off a 2020 study that used proportions of some extant sharks to guess its size and body proportions (this one www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic… ). For those who still believe that 30-meter length stated in The Meg, that's definitely way exaggerated. Also the genus megalodon belongs in is also a bit of a controversial topic so I just went with Carcharocles/ Otodus. And I didn't even bother to put "megalodon" in italics anymore because at this point that's just its common name.

If anyone fucking comments that megalodon is still alive and links "proof" I will make the end-Permian extinction look like a joke.