back to article HUGE SHARK as big as a WWII SUBMARINE died out, allowing whales to exist

It was the largest shark ever seen on Planet Earth - the size of some World War II combat submarines - but until now no-one really knew whether a stray Megalodon was still lurking somewhere out there in the ocean. But finally swimmers can rest easy today - on this score at least, there are still plenty of regular sharks about …

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  1. Marcus Aurelius
    Joke

    Just imagine

    ...a few of those with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

    1. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

      Re: Just imagine

      It does solve the problem of how to make a power source small enough to be carried by the shark. However one problem solved and another is created, you'll need a much bigger pond in your volcano lair. Hell the volcano is probably going to need some up sizing.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: Just imagine

        You can just use that Nazi U-Boot pen that Indy discovered in the Indian Ocean after he managed to hold on fast to the conning tower for about 8 days straight.

      2. VinceH

        Re: Just imagine

        "Hell the volcano is probably going to need some up sizing."

        Just drain off the molten core and use the hole that leaves.

        (And killing two birds with one stone, the molten core you drain off will handily serve as your doomsday weapon, because you'll be draining it to somewhere!)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Devil

          Re: Just imagine

          If we are talking about Megaladon-sized sharks, screw the lasers and go with a frickin' rail gun or torpedo launcher on it's head!!

          Unfortunately, Discovery Channel sold out and did a sci-fi "Megaladon is Alive" show in the U.S., masquerading as a documentary. (I guess that creates a new genre, which I will call the "crockumentary"?) Apparently a lot of people watched it and believed that the search for a living megaladon was real, and the show turned out to be quite successful. I guess that goes back to P.T. Barnum's famous axiom about suckers being born every minute. :/

          1. DanceMan

            Re: Just imagine

            "crockumentary"

            +1 for that.

          2. Michael Thibault

            Re: Just imagine

            'There's a sucker born again every minute.' At least for the last 6000 years or so.

    2. Marcelo Rodrigues
      Joke

      Re: Just imagine

      Laser is so last year... With a shark this size, we should put a mass driver, with supercavitation projectiles! Can you say "BOOM"?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just imagine

      Thats why they died out... no frickin' laser beams

  2. MJI Silver badge

    Perhaps whales killed them off?

    Due to their brain size and ability, perhaps the cetations killed off the more dangerous sharks?

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Perhaps whales killed them off?

      By cracking their secret codes ?

    2. Triggerfish

      Re: Perhaps whales killed them off?

      You also have Livyatan melvillei, a whale that shared the waters at similar times with foot long teeth. If it was as intelligent as an Orca who have worked out how to beat Great Whites, then you have a whole new sci fy channel film.

      1. Alien8n
        Alien

        Re: Perhaps whales killed them off?

        I can see them now...

        Megashark vs Giant Orca

        Followed shortly by Giant Orca vs Megasharknado

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      sic...

      @MJI; "perhaps the cetations killed off the more dangerous sharks?"

      "Cetation" needed. :-)

  3. AbelSoul
    Trollface

    Fonzie

    Would just jump over it.

    1. Zog_but_not_the_first
      Trollface

      Re: Fonzie

      Or a time-travelling Peter Capaldi. No wait...

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Fonzie

      I'm a little sad that this has fewer upvotes than the painfully obvious "frickin' lasers".

  4. Hi Wreck
    Mushroom

    Oh no!

    There goes shark week down the drain. What will Discovery do now?*

    * I hear Honey-Booboo is available so perhaps all is not lost.

    1. Semtex451

      Re: Oh no!

      Another crappy SciFi channel movie

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Mushroom

        Re: Oh no! // Another crappy SciFi channel movie

        I think you'll find it's already been done. Several times in fact.

        Even Nigel Marven had a go in a time-travelling yacht.

        The suggestion there was that it was in fact the whales' increasing size that led to the Megalodon's extinction; it allowed them to migrate to the poles, where it was too cold for the shark to follow.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Oh no! // Another crappy SciFi channel movie

          But in the new Holywood version the Americans would single-handedly defeat the submarine sized shark - possibly by Jeff Goldblum installing a virus

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Oh no!

      What's a "Honey-BooBoo"? If it's not a whale or a shark.... it sounds like a rather irritating bumblebee. Or maybe a reality show....

      1. John Savard

        Re: Oh no!

        You got it; it's a reality-TV show. About the family of a contestant in a child beauty pageant. However, apparently the family is not as dysfunctional as one might have expected - except for the strangeness of beauty pageants for little girls, they're quite ordinary and normal.

    3. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: I hear Honey-Booboo is available

      to be shark food? Spiffy! Film it, and call it a documentary.

  5. Stevie

    Bah!

    As big as a WWII combat submarine?

    Pfft!

    Now if you'd said it was as big as a WWII fuel oil tender and resupply submarine, I'd have been impressed.

    Though I suppose we should be thankful that neither version can turn up in one of the terrifying Sharknadoes that are lashing the American coastlines these days.

    1. Charles Manning

      Re: Bah!

      An X-class was never a combat sub. It could not fight. It just had two charges which it could sneak in and plant. No defensive weapons.

    2. Steve the Cynic

      Re: Bah!

      "Now if you'd said it was as big as a WWII fuel oil tender and resupply submarine, I'd have been impressed."

      Boats like Surcouf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Surcouf) were bigger... And the idea of a 3000+ ton shark is a bit scary. Now all you need is a way to install the twin 8-inch guns on the shark. That'll beat your poncy lasers any day.

      1. graeme leggett Silver badge

        Re: Bah!

        In did but "as big as the smallest submarines (excluding one-man ones) during WWII" wouldn't make much of a tagline

        Surcouf is a bit of an outlier - but comparing to other more mainstream designs at the large end of the displacements. (bit of rounding on values)

        Thames (or River class) British "fleet" design mid-1930s 2,700 tons 345 ft

        Type C3 Japanese, cargo type 3,600 tons, 360 ft

        Type XIV German resupply type 1,900 tons 220 ft

        'Gato' class US "fleet" 2,400 tons, 310 ft

    3. P. Lee

      Re: Bah!

      I believe the sub reference is to a picture of a sub and what appears to be a dorsal and tail fin of something around the same size.

      For extinctness, see "coelacanth."

      Averaging guesses doesn't improve accuracy. When science is merely consensus, it becomes merely folklaw.

      With teeth like that who needs lasers?

  6. Sir Sham Cad

    Comparatively poorly armed

    Those 7 inch teeth weren't just to give it a pretty smile, you know.

    Evolving two ton depth charges so it could dynamite* all the dinner it wanted would just be unfair.

    *yes I know depth charges didn't use dynamite. Shut up.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "totted up 10,000 estimates for when the beast died out, before using "Optimal Linear Estimation" techniques"

    So instead of 10,000 incorrect estimates, there are now 10,001 incorrect estimates.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: now 10,001 incorrect estimates.

      But it's not supposed to be "correct": as an estimate, being (probably) not too different from the actual answer is quite sufficient.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: now 10,001 incorrect estimates.

        sounds more like crowdsourcing than science

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the size of some World War II combat submarines

    You got the measurements wrong! These days, EVERYTHING gets measured in olympic-size swimming pools, get it?!

    1. Robert Helpmann??
      Childcatcher

      Re: the size of some World War II combat submarines

      Nah, that's the Reg UoM for volume. This should more properly use length, which is measured in brontosauruses (bn), double-decker buses (ddb), and linguine (ln).

      50' = 1.6532 ddb

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: the size of some World War II combat submarines

        "Nah, that's the Reg UoM for volume. This should more properly use length, which is measured in brontosauruses (bn), double-decker buses (ddb), and linguine (ln)."

        Whereas weight measurement is of course in terms of metric fucktonnes.

  9. i like crisps
    Facepalm

    MEGALODON!

    ...Yes i have, its Monday!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So Swedish Loch Ness?

    Maybe it isn't a submarine they are hunting...

  11. DNTP

    I saw a TV documentary about this, it was a huge shark that ate a battleship, a jet plane, and the Panama Canal. Then it ate a nuclear sub whole, and became nuclear powered, but then exploded.

    They might have made a few of these things up, but it was narrated by the guy who played the Doctor on "Voyager", and as you know he played a doctor on TV once so he's a trustworthy source.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Go to bed Calvin.

    2. Lapun Mankimasta

      "I saw a TV documentary about this, it was a huge shark that ate a battleship, a jet plane, and the Panama Canal."

      Was that Jaws 3 or Jaws 4? I'm getting forgetful these days.

      1. John Savard

        Google is your friend; two searches revealed to me that it was "Mega Shark versus Crocasaurus"... which was apparently an American satire of Japanese monster movies like Godzilla.

    3. Tom 13

      @DNTP

      I saw him at an sf con a little while back. He's still angling for a guest appearance with that other sf Doctor who doesn't have a name. He'll take most rolls, just so long as he doesn't have to play another deranged/pedo killer. Apparently he's had too many of those rolls recently.

  12. Vociferous

    Correlation does not prove causation.

    Their simulation (that's what it is) has the shark dying out at roughly the same time the whales evolved.

    They assume the reason the whales evolved is because the shark died out, but there is no evidence supporting this except that it happened at about the same time.

    Guess what else happened about 3 million years ago? The Earth climate took a nosedive. Up to that point the entire planet had been subtropical to tropical for 200 million years straight. There was no ice at the poles, there were coral reefs off the coast of britain, there were oak forests growing in what today is the northern Siberian tundra. That all changed 3 million years ago, as the first ice age (of the 20 or so there's been) encased the polar regions in ice, and changed the currents in the sea.

    I'd happily bet that the shark died and the whales arose because of this very major worsening of climate, not because they ate each other.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Correlation does not prove causation.

      Frankly, it's hard to decide whether I prefer a hot planet (corals reefs up north) or a cool planet (dry regions, glittering ice on the horizon and big sea cows). Both have their charms.

      Maybe I should buy both, with one a bit closer to the galactic core, should I need a pied-à-terre for these stupid bicentennial meetings....

      1. Alien8n
        Alien

        Re: Correlation does not prove causation.

        I have the perfect binary star system for you with one of each. There's a slight problem of the infestation of sentient lifeforms but I'm sure you can come to an arrangement with them (probably from space with the aid of mass drivers)...

      2. James Micallef Silver badge

        Re: Correlation does not prove causation.

        "...hard to decide whether I prefer a hot planet (corals reefs up north) ..."

        I'd love that but I would probably pass on the snorkeling with sharks that size around!!

    2. Lapun Mankimasta

      Re: Correlation does not prove causation.

      I'd be inclined to argue that the whales outcompeted the megaladons for medium to large size fisheries, which would've formed a larger proportion of the shark's diet than seems to be acknowledged here. And the warmbloodedness versus the coldbloodness thing does enter in, once the polar oceans cooled as they did. That would've been a major pair of sanctuaries for breeding. Just my 0.02c worth, which is probably inflation, anyways ...

      1. Tom 13

        Re: Correlation does not prove causation.

        My understanding of whale diets is that the really big ones actually eat very small fish, just in huge quantities.

        Still, eliminate the small fish and the populations of medium and large fish will decrease.

    3. Cipher
      WTF?

      Re: Correlation does not prove causation.

      I just did an admittedly quick read on "Optimal Linear Estimation" and came away with the faint odor of Snake Oil. Phrases such as "equivalence and duality concepts for the solution of several related problems in adaptive filtering, estimation, and control." and "These features are generally absent in most prior treatments, ostensibly on the grounds that they are too abstract and complicated. It is the authors' hope that these misconceptions will be dispell..."

      Another thing I find a tad amazing is that there are, apparently, at least 10,000 guesses as to Megladon's extinction.

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