Otodus megalodon was a massive megatooth shark that resided in the world’s oceans from 23 to 3.6 million years back.

It might grow to the huge size of a minimum of 15 m long, making it among the biggest peak marine predators given that the Mesozoic.

Otodus megalodon swam through the world’s oceans in between 23 and 3 million years earlier, often on the hunt for victim to please a calorie need as large as its size,” stated Goethe University Frankfurt’s Dr. Jeremy McCormack and associates.

“According to price quotes, it needed around 100,000 kilocalories daily.”

“Scientists commonly presumed that megalodon’s primary calorie consumption remained in the kind of whales.”

“At least that’s what it did ought to a whale come long.”

“It appears, after all, that megalodon had a much wider series of victim than formerly presumed.”

In the brand-new research study, Dr. McCormack and co-authors examined the ratio of zinc-64 and zinc-66 isotopes in the oral enamel of 19 fossil types from 20.4- to 16-million-year-old sediments transferred in a shallow seaway (Burdigalian Seaway) in what is now southern Germany.

“Zinc is consumed with food, where less of the much heavier isotope zinc-66 than the lighter isotope zinc-64 is saved in muscles and organs,” they discussed.

“Accordingly, the tissue of fish that consume fish soaks up substantially less zinc-66, and those which, in turn, hunt them for food soak up even less.”

“That is why Otodus megalodon and its close relative Otodus chubutensis had the most affordable ratio of zinc-66 to zinc-64 at the top of the food cycle.”

“Sea bream, which fed upon mussels, snails and shellfishes, formed the most affordable level of the food cycle we studied,” Dr. McCormack stated.

“Smaller shark types such as requiem sharks and forefathers these days’s cetaceans, dolphins and whales, were next.”

“Larger sharks such as sand tiger sharks were even more up the food guide pyramid, and at the top were huge sharks like Araloselachus cuspidatus and the Otodus sharks, that include megalodon.”

“However, the Otodus sharks can not be dramatically distinguished from the lower levels of the pyramid.”

“Megalodon was by all methods versatile enough to feed upon marine mammals and big fish, from the top of the diet pyramid in addition to lower levels– depending upon schedule.”

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Jeremy McCormack et alMiocene marine vertebrate trophic ecology exposes megatooth sharks as opportunistic supercarnivores. Earth and Planetary Science Lettersreleased online May 26, 2025; doi: 10.1016/ j.epsl.2025.119392