Megalodon may have been higher up the food chain than any modern shark

Megatooth sharks, including megalodon, seem to have had the highest position in food webs ever occupied by marine predators

Megalodon vs great white: New clues to demise of world’s largest shark

It was the megatooth sharks that had the highest nitrogen ratios – higher than any in living marine predators. “We’ve never seen nitrogen ratio values this high until this project. We expected high values, but not this high,” says Rao. Exactly which predators the sharks ate isn’t completely clear. The nitrogen isotope ratios in existing marine mammals weren’t high enough to account for the unusually high nitrogen-15 levels found in the megatooth fossils. It may be easiest to explain the signal if megatooth sharks ate other, smaller megatooth sharks.

“This is really interesting,” says Rao. “It suggests the huge size of the biggest megatooth sharks were not necessary for them to reach the top of the food web.”

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