Vishwanath

Whenever paleontologist Dana Ehret gives talks about the 15-meter-long prehistoric sharks known as megalodons, he likes to make a joke: “What did megalodon eat?” asks Ehret, Assistant Curator of Natural History at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton. “Well,” he says, “whatever it wanted.” Now, there might be evidence that’s literally true. Some megalodons (Otodus megalodon) may have been “hyper apex predators,” higher up the food chain than any ocean animal ever known, researchers report in the June 22 Science Advances. Using chemical measurements of fossilized teeth, scientists compared the diets of marine animals — from polar bears to ancient great white sharks — and found that megalodons and their direct ancestors were often predators on a level never seen before.