Was Megalodon the great emperor of our oceans, or did Megalodon have more competition than we thought? Wondering if the Megalodon was the ruler? Read more about it in our blog.
Adult Megalodons probably had no natural enemies. The Megalodon's greatest danger was in its young. These young sharks were possibly preyed upon by other large predatory sharks such as the great hammerhead. It is thought that the breeding grounds of Megalodon and Hammerhead crossed at the end of the Miocene era. We are happy to tell you more about this in our blog.
The great rival of the Megalodon
Although the Megalodon had no natural enemies, it had to share its feeding ground with another colossus called the Leviathan.
The Leviathan is an extinct whale that lived about 12 million years ago in what is now a desert, located in present-day Peru. It most likely swam in the same waters as the Megalodon. Research suggests that possibly the changing and increasingly cold climate during the late Neogene period may have killed the species. The Leviathan is most closely related to the present-day sperm whale.
The Leviathan was a tough opponent of the Megalodon. The Leviathan was about the same size as the Megalodon and weighed about 50,000 kilograms. In addition, the Leviathan had extremely large teeth, the largest tooth found was about 30 cm long. This made the found tooth also the largest known bite tooth of a predator.
The food chain of Megalodon
The Megalodon is believed to have had a varied diet consisting of fish, sea turtles, Dugongs, large whales and other shark species. Unlike today's shark species, the Megalodon's size and strength made it the emperor of its time and it could hunt almost anything in the ocean. Adult Megalodons were known to hunt the largest oceanic prey. Although the young Megalodon did not hunt the large prey as the adults did, the young still hunted fairly large prey, for example: the dugong. The Dugongs appeared to be less agile and slower than the prey hunted by the adult Megalodon.
In fact, it is even possible that the young Megalodon mainly hunted in the coastal areas. This is because the coastal areas were also seen as breeding grounds by the Megalodon. The coastal areas gave the young Megalodons enough smaller prey to hunt.
The hunting method of the Megalodon
When it comes to the hunting method the Megalodon used to catch their prey, it is thought that the Megalodon may have used a similar hunting method to tear apart their prey as the great white shark does today. However, the Megalodon's hunting methods were more diverse than those of the great white shark.
This would involve taking a large bite out of its prey with its large sharp teeth and shaking its head from side to side to tear flesh from its prey.
Have you always wanted to know how strong the bite force of a Megalodon really is? Did you know that the Megalodon had the greatest bite force in the entire animal kingdom? Read more about this in the blog: How powerful is a Megalodon's bite?
If you are now curious about Megalodon teeth and you think it would be cool to own such a large tooth, then take a look at our range of Megalodon teeth.