Ever since i first saw a documentary about Charcaradon Megalodon i was stunned.Since the big fish extinced nobody has seen it.BUT is it possible that we might find it lurking some where deep in the waters hunting for food?Post your thougts.

so is it possible that megalodon exists but maybe has a other shap?!

I doubt there are any more Megalodons left, it seems they fed on early whales and the whales were just able to out evolve and outmaneuver them, so there was nothing left for them to eat.

There isn't much large aquatic life in the depths of the ocean. Whales and such venture down there, but don't stay down there. Giant squid could be a possible prey item, but it is unlikely. Chances are no one's going to find a megalodon down that deep.

I doubt it still exists in the same form. Evolution tends to cause the species to evolve into a smaller body through time. Examples of these are tree sloths, bears, crocodiles/alligators, apes, and birds.

Well, as we do not know too much about this creature, it is hard to predict whether or not it survives today. But heres a fact for you: We actually know more about space than we do about our own oceans. Seems hard to believe i know, and it may be slightly outdated now, but even if that fact was from 10 or 20 years ago, its still pretty amazing. Maybe the Megalodon does survive somewhere in the depths of the ocean...

Originally posted by DJMessiah
I doubt it still exists in the same form. Evolution tends to cause the species to evolve into a smaller body through time. Examples of these are tree sloths, bears, crocodiles/alligators, apes, and birds.

Yet Humans have grown much taller over time (maybe as much as 2ft)

The megaladon would have to have gone under drastic physiological changes to survive the global climate changes since the day of it's supposed extinction.
Also, the Megaladon didn't swim at low depth like the Giant Squid, so presumably it suffered from the mass extinction.

If megalodon was anything at all like the great white in habits surely someone would see its huge dorsal fin cutting across the surface of the ocean somewhere.....many large sharks (save for deep water species like the goblin shark and sleeper shark, and other relatively tiny sharks like the cookie cutter) look for prey at the water's surface and on the coasts.

For large shark species that actively prey on other fish and/or mammals (not filter-feeders) one of the best places to find prey is close to the water's surface, because dead and wounded animals are often found there (one reason experts say that humans occasionally become shark victims because, among other reasons, being at the water's surface, whether swimming or treading water, is a sign to a shark of a wounded animal).

But back to megalodon - at some place and time someone would have seen one chomping away on a whale carcass that had floated up to the surface. It would be cool if they were still around, but I don't think so.

As much as I would like the Meg's to have survived after all these years, it would almost be impossible for one to survive today.

They were a species of large, hungry creatures. Food resources would certainly bring them to the surface and with the well travelled seaways of today, sightings would be prevalent.

I still hold out hope for a gigantic (30'+) GW living somewhere, but as for the Meg, I believe they were wiped out a long time ago.

Also,

In regards to the Mariana Trench thread, although I didn't see the vid myself, I thought they surmised it was most likely a Gigantic Squid. There was also a discrepancy regarding the size of the creature, 60 meters vs. 60 feet.

Still would have like to see the video.

To be honest, I've seen it way too many times... Sci-Fi keeps making bad movie's based on it...

But on a serious note, I would say it's hard to say... The ocean being so big, and so many areas where we haven't been, there's bound to be things down there from a distant past...

The selacamp is the textbook example of course... All be it the Megladon would be a little easier to spot on a where's waldo puzzle...

Hmm it is possible that theres some left. Afterall who knows whats really down under the surface? We hardly half of the creatures on land!

this may be.......controversial in itself, but does the Biblical creature Leviathan make any sense? we haven't discovered a good percentage of our oceans. outer space is more explored that our own Terran waters. suppose we turn our efforts into exploring the secrets of our oceans, maybe the movie The Abyss isn't too far off.

The shark in the video is a sleeper shark.

As for megalodon still being alive today, I would love for that to be true but IMHO it isn't likely.

As you can see from my username I have quite a facination with the shark, it truely was an incredible animal, but the things that don't add up are -

1. If this animal was a deep sea dweller (as some believers presume) then it's diet would surely have to be large animals like the giant squid (and perhaps the occasional sperm whale). If that is so then its teeth certainly do not seem to match the prey it is hunting.

2. The sustainable population for a colony of megalodon sharks would have to me signifigant, that is, to prevent inbreeding. The amount of food for this colony is believed to be nonexistant.

Would love to see this fish still around however I had to argue against it a couple of years ago purely on the basis of maths. I'll just throw my argument up again to save folk reading through a large topic.

Ok been doing a little more research on this to try and give a more substanced argument.

So first things first we need to take a look at the minimum required number of individuals for a species to survive. Since we all know that without genetic diversity, inbreeding and ultimately extinction occurs.
After looking around the best I’ve come up with is that the MVP (minimum viable population) for many creatures is in the region of

<50-<500

To explain this, it means that a population of 50 is critical to prevent inbreeding problems, and a population of at least 500 is critical to prevent genetic loss through natural genetic drift.
So for a species to survive effectively it really needs 500 at least, even more so when you consider how much marine creatures wander.

However for the purpose of argument I'm happy to go with a conservative of 500. (Also consider not all of these are breeding, some are young, some old, some die before they get a chance)



Now that we have a number for how many megalodon's we need we next need to look at food, as it’s the primary thing for anything to survive. Since its closest living relative is the great white, then that’s all we have to base any real theories upon. It's generally accepted that sharks need to consume around 2% of their bodyweight per day to live. (Note this doesn’t mean it has to be that much every single day, just that amount on average)
So we take a look at the approximation of megalodon's size, ok i've looked at a number of sites and suggestions and generally it seems that it was around 40-50ft in length and around 30-40 tonnes in weight. Yes that’s 30,000 kilograms!!!!! One big fish.

Working with a general 2% rule this gives us a daily food requirement of 600 kilograms per individual. So then a simple case of multiplying that by the minimum needed 500 specimens gives us a nice little figure of 300,00kg per day consumed by this species at a bare low figure. (I’m using the smallest number of specimens and also going with a conservative figure for body mass)

Ok so in the vast depths of the oceans 300 tons a day may not sound like a great deal. However you then need to take some basic rules of nature into account.

All activity requires energy, and all things eaten provide energy. To survive you need to consume more energy than you actively use ( by actively I mean things such as walking, working and such. all stuff you do consciously) Without this you won't have the reserves to repair damaged tissues, grow or reproduce.
With this in mind it becomes obvious why all predators when hunting will choose the largest food source that will provide them with the needed energy. There’s no point in chasing a hundred mice (whilst easy to kill) if at the end of it you expelled more energy than they provide, better to kill one antelope.

So when you consider megalodon's size it's safe to rule out pretty much anything smaller than perhaps an elephant seal as a prey item, it just wouldn't be worth megalodons time and effort to try to catch smaller more agile prey. I'm happy to concede it did scavenge, but not as it's primary source. This was a hunter that may have scavenged, not a scavenger that may have hunted.

Ok then to conclude, we have a species that is consuming at least 300 tons of food a day that consists of large prey items. It's been suggested that megalodon typically preyed upon whales as food, and I can see it as a feasible idea when you consider its size. (even killer whales will take on other whales for food) As many thing in nature show with an animal design, if it aint broke don't fix it. So if still around today, it would likely still be feeding on whales as a primary food source.


Here lies the problem for me that amount of that kind of stuff being eaten would show up as a noticeable impact, even if you didn’t see this stuff happening there would be evidence of it. The whale that got away with battle scars, washed up corpses with injuries pertaining to their demise.


There’s just too many things that would make such a massive predator visible to us that hasn't ever been seen for me to think it can still be around.