The Megalodon was one of the ocean’s top predators, but about 3.5 million years ago, the last of the Megalodon went extinct. The cause of the extinction was unknown. However, a recent analysis of shark teeth discovered that the Megalodon wasn’t the only shark eating the same food.
A team led by Jeremy McCormack – a geoscientist working for Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology – found out the Megalodon and another shark ate the same food by examining the zinc on both shark’s teeth.
“Zinc is essential for organisms, as it plays an important role in a wide range of biological processes,” McCormack said. When predators eat their prey, it gets some minerals from their prey. One of the minerals is zinc.
Zinc has two isotopes, or primary forms, zinc-66 and zinc-64. In both sharks’ tooth enamel they have each zinc form. The amount of zinc in both states can determine what their prey was. In the analysis taken by the researchers, they discovered that the enormous predators ate marine animals such as whales and seals.
However, there could be other factors that the researchers don’t know yet. It could be about the rising of Central America, the ocean freezing, the significant drop in marine animals, and much more. The discoveries made by the researchers give us a start to what caused the Megalodon to become extinct.
Source: https://www.snexplores.org/article/great-white-sharks-megalodon-food-competition-extinction
A team led by Jeremy McCormack – a geoscientist working for Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology – found out the Megalodon and another shark ate the same food by examining the zinc on both shark’s teeth.
“Zinc is essential for organisms, as it plays an important role in a wide range of biological processes,” McCormack said. When predators eat their prey, it gets some minerals from their prey. One of the minerals is zinc.
Zinc has two isotopes, or primary forms, zinc-66 and zinc-64. In both sharks’ tooth enamel they have each zinc form. The amount of zinc in both states can determine what their prey was. In the analysis taken by the researchers, they discovered that the enormous predators ate marine animals such as whales and seals.
However, there could be other factors that the researchers don’t know yet. It could be about the rising of Central America, the ocean freezing, the significant drop in marine animals, and much more. The discoveries made by the researchers give us a start to what caused the Megalodon to become extinct.
Source: https://www.snexplores.org/article/great-white-sharks-megalodon-food-competition-extinction
