How every fact on this site was checked
125 facts. Each one is in our own words, each one has a source, and each one was checked against that source on 13 November 2026.
How we check
We read each source and wrote each fact in our own words. Our build stores the text of every source page, and for each fact it checks that the key words and figures, the “checks” in the table, really appear on the source page. If any check fails, the site does not build. Where good sources disagree, we show each version in a “Sources differ” box rather than picking one. Anything that is our own reading, rather than a sourced fact, is labelled Our opinion. The drawings are our own and simplified; the size and tooth drawings are to scale using the figures quoted.
Known disagreements
- When it lived. 23 to 3.6 million years ago (NHM, Smithsonian Ocean); Britannica gives 23.03 to 2.58 million years ago; the NHM and Smithsonian Ocean also mention 2.6 million years ago; a 2019 study puts the end at about 3.6 million years ago, with a median of 3.51.
- Length. 15 to 18 m from older tooth estimates (NHM); about 18 m, or 60 feet, for the largest (Smithsonian Ocean); an average of 13 to 14 m for adults (Britannica); possibly up to 24.3 m (2025 study, quoted by the NHM and Britannica).
- Weight. Perhaps up to 50 tons (Smithsonian Ocean), 30 to more than 65 tonnes (Britannica), or about 94 tonnes for a 24.3 m shark (2025 study).
- The biggest tooth. Almost 18 cm (NHM), 17.8 cm (Britannica), or some over 18 cm tall (Smithsonian Ocean).
- Size at birth. 3.6 to 3.9 m (2025 study), up to 3.9 m (NHM), or at least 2 m (Britannica).
- Bite. 108,514 to 182,201 newtons (NHM), or about 40,000 pounds of force (Smithsonian Ocean).
- Relatives. A different lineage from the great white (NHM), closer to an ancestor of the makos (Smithsonian Ocean), or still debated (Britannica).
- Body shape. Slimmer, perhaps like a lemon shark (NHM, 2025 study), or bulky and great-white-like (Britannica).
- Nurseries. Described in Panama in 2010 and listed by Smithsonian Ocean; questioned by studies in 2022 and 2025.
What we left out
- Some pages we wanted to use would not load for us to check. Nothing from them is used.
- Megalodon is known almost only from teeth and a few backbones, so lengths, weights and bite forces are estimates. Newer studies replace older ones; we show the date of each.
- The great white length in the size drawing, and the bite and size-o-meter conversions, are our own arithmetic from the sources’ figures, not quoted facts.
The log
| # | Fact | Source | Checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The word megalodon means “giant tooth”: it is made from Greek root words. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 2 | The Natural History Museum translates the name simply as ‘large tooth’. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 3 | Its scientific name today is Otodus megalodon. It used to be called Carcharodon megalodon or Carcharocles megalodon. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 4 | Megalodon was first described in 1835 by the Swiss-born naturalist Louis Agassiz, who named it Carcharodon megalodon. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 5 | It is considered the largest shark, and the largest fish, that ever lived. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 6 | The Natural History Museum is a little more careful: the biggest shark in the world, and one of the largest fish ever to exist. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 7 | The earliest megalodon fossils date to 23 million years ago, and it became extinct 3.6 million years ago. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 8 | Smithsonian Ocean says it lived roughly 23 to 3.6 million years ago in nearly every corner of the ocean. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 9 | Britannica dates megalodon fossils from the early Miocene, which began 23.03 million years ago, to the end of the Pliocene, 2.58 million years ago. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 10 | Like other sharks, its skeleton was mostly cartilage, the same bendy material as in your nose and ears. Cartilage is lighter than bone but very hard to fossilise. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 3 passed |
| 11 | So most of what we know comes from its teeth, its vertebrae (which contain calcium and so are preserved) and fossilised poop. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 12 | No one has ever found a complete megalodon skeleton. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 13 | Britannica says it is known from hundreds of fossil teeth, two vertebral columns and a handful of single vertebrae. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 14 | Fossil megalodon vertebrae about the size of a dinner plate have been found. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 15 | A megalodon skull reported from Peru apparently has a crushed braincase, all its teeth and a short string of vertebrae, but the museum’s expert had not yet seen good pictures of it. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 16 | Its body shape is worked out from living sharks, because the skeleton is missing. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 17 | Most reconstructions show megalodon as an enormous great white shark. The Natural History Museum says this is now believed to be wrong. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 18 | Scaled up to megalodon’s size, a great white would probably struggle to swim, so scientists suggest a much slimmer body, perhaps shaped like a lemon shark’s. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 19 | It probably also had a much shorter snout than a great white, a flatter jaw and extra-long pectoral fins to carry its weight. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 20 | A 2025 study by 29 fossil shark experts concluded that megalodon could have had a slender body, because a stout, great-white-like body at that size would have cost too much energy to push through the water. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 3 passed |
| 21 | Britannica still gives the older picture as well: a bulky, torpedo-shaped fish with a cone-shaped snout, large fins and a crescent-shaped tail, like a great white. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 22 | A 2020 study scaled up five living relatives and suggested that a 16 m megalodon probably had a head about 4.65 m long, a dorsal fin about 1.62 m tall and a tail about 3.85 m high. | Cooper and others (2020), Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction, Scientific Reports 10:14596 | 1 passed |
| 23 | The 2025 authors call their ideas working hypotheses: reference points for future studies, not final answers. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 1 passed |
| 24 | For a long time people thought megalodon was a relative of the great white. The museum’s expert says we now know it came from a different lineage of shark, and was the last member of it. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 25 | The oldest definite ancestor of megalodon is Otodus obliquus, a 55-million-year-old shark that grew to about 10 metres. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 26 | The lineage may go back to a Cretalamna shark 105 million years ago, which would make it more than 100 million years old. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 27 | Smithsonian Ocean dates the start of megalodon’s lineage to about 60 million years ago, and says even its earliest member was longer than a great white. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 28 | Megalodon belonged to the lamnoid sharks (Lamniformes), the group that also includes great whites, makos and threshers. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 29 | Smithsonian Ocean says modern studies show megalodon was more closely related to an ancestor of mako sharks than to the great white. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 30 | Britannica places it in the extinct family of megatooth sharks, the Otodontidae. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 31 | Britannica notes that the debate is not over: some palaeontologists still put megalodon in the same lineage as the great white because of their serrated teeth, while others put it with the megatooth sharks. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 32 | Their similar serrated teeth may be convergent evolution: similar features evolving separately in different lineages. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 33 | The great white’s ancestor lived at the same time as megalodon, and some scientists think the two competed. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 34 | A 2020 study points out that the two species probably belong to different families, so using the great white as the only model for megalodon’s size can be a problem. | Cooper and others (2020), Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction, Scientific Reports 10:14596 | 1 passed |
| 35 | Megalodon teeth can reach 18 centimetres long. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 36 | The largest megalodon tooth ever found is almost 18 cm long. Great white teeth are usually about 5 cm. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 37 | Britannica gives the largest known tooth as 17.8 cm, almost three times the usual 5.4 cm of a great white’s tooth. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 38 | Smithsonian Ocean says its teeth were as large as an adult human’s hand, and some are over 18 cm tall. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 39 | Like a great white’s, megalodon teeth are triangular, serrated and symmetrical. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 40 | But they are bigger and thicker, their serrations are evenly spaced, and they have a bourlette: a darker, chevron-shaped band near the root. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 41 | Its jaws held 276 teeth. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 42 | Its teeth sat in several rows. Each time one fell out, a tooth from the row behind moved forward to replace it, like a conveyor belt. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 2 passed |
| 43 | Sharks make new teeth all their lives. Depending on what they eat, they can lose a set every one to two weeks and get through up to 40,000 teeth. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 44 | So shark teeth are always raining down onto the sea floor, which raises the chance that some become fossils. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 45 | Teeth are also the hardest part of a shark, which is why almost all megalodon fossils are teeth. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 46 | Megalodon teeth have been found on every continent except Antarctica. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 47 | Lots turn up off the east coast of North America: along the coasts and in saltwater creeks and rivers of North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 48 | They are also quite common off Morocco and parts of Australia. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 49 | In the UK they have been found near Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, but they are extremely rare here and usually poor quality. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 50 | In the UK, Otodus megalodon teeth occasionally wash out of the Red Crag, one of the younger rocks of East Anglia. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 51 | Because sharks shed teeth all the time, megalodon teeth can be found scattered on coastal beaches or just offshore. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 52 | Body lengths are estimated from tooth size, using the link between tooth size and body size in great whites and other living relatives. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 53 | A 2022 study used upper front teeth, which its authors say give better size estimates than side teeth. | Natural History Museum news: Megalodon sharks grew biggest in colder waters (7 March 2022) | 1 passed |
| 54 | The equations for turning teeth into body length were updated in 2021, using a largely complete set of teeth, after earlier estimates were found to vary wildly. | Natural History Museum news: Megalodon sharks grew biggest in colder waters (7 March 2022) | 2 passed |
| 55 | Older length estimates, based on tooth size, suggest a maximum of 15 to 18 metres. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 56 | A 2025 study by 29 fossil shark experts found that megalodon may have grown up to 24.3 metres long. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 57 | That is about four times longer than the largest recorded great white, and a few metres longer than the biggest whale shark, measured at 18.8 metres. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 58 | It would make megalodon only a metre shorter than Hope, the blue whale skeleton hanging in the museum’s Hintze Hall. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 59 | The 24.3 m figure comes from nearly complete and partial backbones found in Belgium and Denmark, compared with 170 kinds of living and extinct sharks to work out head and tail sizes. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 60 | The 2025 paper itself says megalodon possibly reached about 24.3 m in length. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 1 passed |
| 61 | A shark that size may have weighed about 94 tonnes and cruised at around 2.1 to 3.5 km an hour. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 1 passed |
| 62 | Smithsonian Ocean says the largest were roughly 60 feet (about 18 m) long, perhaps up to 50 tons, the size and weight of a railway carriage. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 63 | Smithsonian Ocean also says females were bigger on average, about 13 to 17 m, and males about 10 to 14 m. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 64 | It calls megalodon roughly up to three times the length of a modern great white. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 65 | Britannica says grown-up megalodons averaged 13 to 14 metres, with the largest up to an estimated 24.3 metres. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 66 | Britannica gives adult weights from about 30 tonnes to more than 65 tonnes. Most great whites weigh 680 to 1,800 kg. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 3 passed |
| 67 | A 2022 study found that megalodons living in cooler water tended to grow bigger than those in warmer water. | Natural History Museum news: Megalodon sharks grew biggest in colder waters (7 March 2022) | 1 passed |
| 68 | Its lead author said the common idea that megalodon reached 18 to 20 metres should apply mainly to populations in cooler seas. | Natural History Museum news: Megalodon sharks grew biggest in colder waters (7 March 2022) | 1 passed |
| 69 | Only estimates are possible, because nearly all megalodon fossils are teeth. | Natural History Museum news: Megalodon sharks grew biggest in colder waters (7 March 2022) | 2 passed |
| 70 | Reading the growth bands in a backbone, the 2025 study estimated a size at birth of 3.6 to 3.9 metres. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 2 passed |
| 71 | The Natural History Museum puts it simply: newborn megalodons may have been up to 3.9 metres long. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 72 | Britannica, using young sharks’ teeth, says newborns may have been at least 2 metres long. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 73 | Its jaws are estimated to have opened 2.7 by 3.4 metres: big enough to swallow two adults side by side, or a London taxi. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 74 | Britannica gives its bite diameter as 3 metres, several times that of an average great white. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 75 | A human bite has been measured at around 1,317 newtons and a great white’s predicted at 18,216 N. Megalodon’s is estimated at 108,514 to 182,201 N. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 3 passed |
| 76 | Smithsonian Ocean says a megalodon bite could have reached about 40,000 pounds of force, which would be the strongest bite in the whole animal kingdom. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 77 | Museum jaws are often shown opened wider than the living shark could manage, so that the teeth show. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 78 | With its big serrated teeth megalodon ate meat: most likely whales and large fish, and probably other sharks. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 79 | Its prey ranged from dolphins to animals as big as humpback whales. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 80 | Smithsonian Ocean lists toothed and baleen whales, seals, sea cows and sea turtles, and probably fish and other sharks too. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 81 | Britannica adds that the young probably went after smaller prey while adults hunted bigger whales. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 82 | Some fossil whale bones carry cut marks from megalodon teeth, and some even hold the broken-off tips of teeth. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 83 | Sometimes a whole megalodon tooth is found stuck in a whale bone. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 84 | From tooth marks, scientists think it struck larger prey such as small whales in the chest, punching through their ribs, and may have rammed smaller prey to stun it. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 85 | Megalodon was an apex predator. Fully grown ones probably had no predators, but the young may have been at risk from other big sharks such as great hammerheads. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 3 passed |
| 86 | Megalodon was adapted to warm tropical and subtropical seas around the globe. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 87 | Its fossils come from shallow tropical and temperate seas along the coasts and continental shelves of every continent except Antarctica. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 88 | Smithsonian Ocean says it lived in most of the ocean except near the poles, with the most northerly fossils found off Denmark. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 89 | Like great whites, megalodon was probably not entirely cold-blooded: heat from its swimming muscles kept parts of its body warmer than the water, which is called regional endothermy. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 90 | The 2025 authors say its body temperature was similar to, or maybe slightly higher than, that of great whites. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 1 passed |
| 91 | Megalodon is thought to have given birth to live young. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 92 | The 2025 study supports the idea that megalodon pups grew inside the mother and ate unhatched eggs there, as some living sharks do. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 1 passed |
| 93 | A 2010 study described the first definite megalodon nursery, in the Gatun Formation of Panama, about 10 million years old. | Pimiento and others (2010), Ancient nursery area for the extinct giant shark megalodon from the Miocene of Panama, PLoS ONE 5(5):e10552 | 1 passed |
| 94 | Most of the teeth there were very small, from young sharks and newborns estimated at 2 to 10.5 metres long. | Pimiento and others (2010), Ancient nursery area for the extinct giant shark megalodon from the Miocene of Panama, PLoS ONE 5(5):e10552 | 2 passed |
| 95 | Smithsonian Ocean lists nursery sites in Panama, Maryland, the Canary Islands and Florida. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 96 | A 2022 study questioned the nurseries: sites full of small teeth may just be places where warm water meant the sharks grew smaller. | Natural History Museum news: Megalodon sharks grew biggest in colder waters (7 March 2022) | 1 passed |
| 97 | The 2025 study also found nursery areas less likely to have been needed. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 1 passed |
| 98 | Megalodon teeth are only found in sea rocks 20 to 3.6 million years old. None younger has ever been found, so it went extinct 3.6 million years ago. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 2 passed |
| 99 | The same page talks of megalodon’s 16-million-year existence. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 1 passed |
| 100 | The Natural History Museum also says megalodon was extinct by the end of the Pliocene, 2.6 million years ago, and that new evidence from the USA puts the last one at least 3.6 million years ago. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 101 | Smithsonian Ocean puts its disappearance from the fossil record around 2.6 million years ago. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 102 | A 2019 study checked every late record on the Pacific coast of North America and found the youngest reliable ones are early Pliocene, pointing to extinction about 3.6 million years ago. | Boessenecker and others (2019), The Early Pliocene extinction of the mega-toothed shark Otodus megalodon, PeerJ 7:e6088 | 1 passed |
| 103 | Re-analysing a wider set of records gave a median extinction date of 3.51 million years ago, older than the 2.6 million years proposed before. | Boessenecker and others (2019), The Early Pliocene extinction of the mega-toothed shark Otodus megalodon, PeerJ 7:e6088 | 1 passed |
| 104 | The same study says the extinction may not have happened at the same time everywhere. | Boessenecker and others (2019), The Early Pliocene extinction of the mega-toothed shark Otodus megalodon, PeerJ 7:e6088 | 1 passed |
| 105 | The planet was cooling. As adult megalodons depended on warm water, falling sea temperatures probably meant a big loss of habitat. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 106 | Up to a third of all large sea animals, including 43% of turtles and 35% of seabirds, may have died out as temperatures cooled and numbers at the base of the food chain plummeted. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 107 | Its prey may have died out too, or moved into cooler water where the sharks could not follow. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 108 | As ice formed at the poles and sea level fell, the shallow coastal waters where pups were born would have been lost. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 109 | Smithsonian Ocean links the end to the rising Isthmus of Panama, which cut the Caribbean off from the nutrient-rich Pacific, and the loss of prey. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 2 passed |
| 110 | Competition with great white sharks for food may also have played a part. Studies of fossil teeth show that what the two ate overlapped. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 111 | A 2022 study of zinc in fossil teeth found that, in the early Pliocene, great whites and megalodons living in the same places fed at a similar level in the food chain. | McCormack and others (2022), Trophic position of Otodus megalodon and great white sharks through time revealed by zinc isotopes, Nature Communications 13:2980 | 1 passed |
| 112 | The 2025 study supports the idea that the arrival of the great white in the early Pliocene was at least partly to blame, through competition for food. | Shimada and 28 others (2025), Reassessment of the possible size, form, weight, cruising speed and growth parameters of Otodus megalodon, Palaeontologia Electronica 28(1):a12 (PDF) | 1 passed |
| 113 | The 2019 study also suggests that ocean changes and cooling broke up its range, alongside competition with the newly evolved great white. | Boessenecker and others (2019), The Early Pliocene extinction of the mega-toothed shark Otodus megalodon, PeerJ 7:e6088 | 2 passed |
| 114 | Exactly why megalodon went extinct is still being worked out, but there is mounting evidence for a mix of changing climate, falling prey numbers and competition. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 2 passed |
| 115 | It is definitely not alive in the deep ocean. If an animal that big were still out there, we would know about it. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 2 passed |
| 116 | There have been no confirmed sightings of a living or dead modern megalodon. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 1 passed |
| 117 | No living sea animals have been seen with megalodon-sized bite marks. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 1 passed |
| 118 | Below about 3,000 metres there is barely any food, and no sharks live much deeper than that. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 2 passed |
| 119 | As a warm-water species, it could not survive in the cold water of the deep sea anyway. | Natural History Museum: Megalodon, the truth about the largest shark that ever lived | 1 passed |
| 120 | A 2013 US documentary, Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, used faked photos and footage, and its ‘scientists’ were hired actors. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 2 passed |
| 121 | Two megalodon teeth dredged up by the Challenger expedition in 1875 were claimed in 1959 to be only tens of thousands of years old. That claim was disproved in the 1970s. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 3 passed |
| 122 | A 1918 report from fishermen off eastern Australia described a shark 31 to 95 metres long stealing lobster pots. It may have been a whale shark. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 2 passed |
| 123 | The short name megalodon is also the name of a genus of clams, which can cause confusion among scientists. | Smithsonian Ocean: The Megalodon | 1 passed |
| 124 | Great whites have been recorded diving to around 1,000 metres. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 1 passed |
| 125 | Whale sharks, up to 18 metres long, are rarely seen, yet we know they are the largest living sharks. | Natural History Museum: Is megalodon still alive? | 1 passed |