Scientific name: Megalodon What is Megalodon?
1. Megalodon's teeth were about 7 inches long...
M
egalodon didn't earn its name ("giant tooth") for nothing. The teeth of this prehistoric shark were over half a foot long, serrated, and heart-shaped (by comparison, the biggest teeth of a Great White Shark are only about three inches long). You have to go back 65 million years--to none other than Tyrannosaurus Rex-to find a creature with consistently bigger choppers, though the canines of some saber-toothed cats also measured up.
2. ...and were once described as "tongue stones."
Because sharks are constantly shedding their teeth--thousands and thousands over the course of a lifetime--Megalodon teeth have been found all over the world, from antiquity to modern times. It was only in the 17th century that a court physician named Nicholas Steno identified peasants' prized "tongue stones" as shark teeth; for this reason, some experts describe Steno as the world's first paleontologist!
3. Megalodon had the most powerful bite of any creature that ever lived.
In 2008, a joint research team from Australia and the U.S. used computer simulations to calculate Megalodon's biting power. The results can only be described as terrifying: whereas a modern Great White Shark chomps with about 1.8 tons of force (and a lion with a wimpy 600 pounds or so), Megalodon chowed down on its prey with a force of between 10.8 and 18.2 tons--enough to crush the skull of a prehistoric whale as easily as a grape.