Megalodon (Otodus megalodon) is undoubtedly a unique shark for its famously enormous size alone. But how have scientists throughout the years used its teeth and fairly basic math to calculate just how big this shark was? Learn all about the constantly changing science driving megalodon size calculations in this breakdown. The most up-to-date method, which uses more complete megalodon dentitions and suggests sizes of up to 20 meters long, can be found in this scientific paper. 

The precise body length of the animal aside, what adaptations allowed megalodon and its ancestors to evolve such giant sizes? This blog by PhD researcher Jack Cooper, written for the Bristol Dinosaur Project, dives into the unique physiology of megalodon that was likely a key driver of its gigantism and discusses the scientists whose work helped uncover this. 

In addition to its teeth, megalodon has left trace evidence of the nasty injuries it left behind on animals that fell victim to its bite. This blog by PhD researcher Hannah Bird covers a particularly fascinating case study, originally published by Stephen Godfrey and Brian Beatty, in which a small whale suffered tremendous damage to its vertebrae. An associated megalodon tooth found with this almost broken backbone implicates the giant shark as the culprit behind the injury. Most extraordinary of all, however, was evidence of healing found on the broken bone – indicating that the whale miraculously survived the attack. Evidence like this gives us insight into how megalodon may have hunted its prey.

Lastly, while megalodon may be the biggest and most famous prehistoric shark, it is only a small part of a huge lineage stretching back over 400 million years. Learn more about the evolution of sharks, why their teeth are so common in the fossil record, and how they have survived so many mass extinctions in this article by the Natural History Museum in London.

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