Could Megalodons still roam the oceans?

[JAB5239]

http://www.elasmo-research.org/educa...odon_lives.htm

[B.U.R.N.E.R]

Considering how little of the water on earth we have explored. Id say yes.

[JAB5239]

Considering how little of the water on earth we have explored. Id say yes.

Less than 5% of the deep ocean has actually been explored. The possibility is there in my opinion.

[xzworks]

wtf....


SCIENCE WEEK in boxingscene...we do that every 1st week of july?

[squealpiggy]

[Biolink]

I'd say yes.

We already have giant Octopus that washup on shore every now and then.

We just haven't been deep enough because of the water pressure. But whatever animal could survive that kind of pressure at that depth is for sure a beast.

[JAB5239]

So as big as the ocean is, as deep as it is, you don't think there is ANY possibility Piggy?

[JAB5239]

I'd say yes.

We already have giant Octopus that washup on shore every now and then.

We just haven't been deep enough because of the water pressure. But whatever animal could survive that kind of pressure at that depth is for sure a beast.

We have no idea about the food supply that deep either. As said in the link I posted, sperm whales routinely dive the 12,000 feet for food when there isn't any up higher. Who's to say a shark wouldn't consistently stay at that depth as long as there was a food supply?

[NChristo]

Possibly, but the deeper we go down the less there are fish-like creatures, so it seems on programs like Planet Earth and Deep Blue etc anyway, the further we go down things seem to change completely and personally I don't see a creture as huge and shark like as the Megalodon being down there.

JMO anyway we obviously haven't even searched even 5% of the ocean as already noted above and this is just a very shallow observation of one part of one sea, but I suspect it's like that in most other places as well.

[JAB5239]

In the year 1918 I recorded the sensation that had been caused among the "outside" crayfish men at Port Stephens, when, for several days, they refused to go to sea to their regular fishing grounds in the vicinity of Broughton Island. The men had been at work on the fishing grounds---which lie in deep water---when an immense shark of almost unbelievable proportions put in an appearance, lifting pot after pot containing many crayfishes, and taking, as the men said, "pots, mooring lines and all". These crayfish pots, it should be mentioned, were about 3 feet 6 inches [1.06 m] in diameter and frequently contained from two to three dozen good-sized crayfish each weighing several pounds. The men were all unanimous that this shark was something the like of which they had never dreamed of. In company with the local Fisheries Inspector I questioned many of the men very closely and they all agreed as to the gigantic stature of the beast. But the lengths they gave were, on the whole, absurd. I mention them, however, as a indication of the state of mind which this unusual giant had thrown them into. And bear in mind that these were men who were used to the sea and all sorts of weather, and all sorts of sharks as well. One of the crew said the shark was "three hundred feet [90 m] long at least"! Others said it was as long as the wharf on which we stood---about 115 feet [35 m]! They affirmed that the water "boiled" over a large space when the fish swam past. They were all familiar with whales, which they had often seen passing at sea, but this was a vast shark. They had seen its terrible head which was "at least as long as the roof on the wharf shed at Nelson's Bay." Impossible, of course! But these were prosaic and rather stolid men, not given to 'fish stories' nor even to talking about their catches. Further, they knew that the person they were talking to (myself) had heard all the fish stories years before! One of the things that impressed me was that they all agreed as to the ghostly whitish color of the vast fish. The local Fisheries Inspector of the time, Mr Paton, agreed with me that it must have been something really gigantic to put these experienced men into such a state of fear and panic.

Shuker (1995) and Goss (1987) include two more reported sightings of very large sharks that they interpret as possible evidence for C. megalodon survival. One involved Zane Grey, the famous author of western novels and an avid deep-sea angler, and the other his son Loren. (Not having access to the Grey’s original works in which their sightings are recounted, I rely on Goss [1987] for details). The first sighting occurred when Zane Grey was deep-sea fishing off Rangiroa in the South Pacific in 1927 or 1928. Glancing over the boat’s railing, he spotted an enormous “yellow and green” shark with a “square head, immense pectoral fins and a few white spots.” Grey claimed it was “considerably longer than my boat---conservatively between 35 and 40 feet [10.5 and 12 m].” Some New Zealand fishermen aboard who also saw the great shark agreed with Grey’s estimate. Initially, Grey thought the shark was a whale shark (Rhincodon typus) (Fig. 3), which grows to a length of at least 12 m (40 ft), but according to Goss (1987) Grey thought “only the size of this ... shark was the same; otherwise it was in no way similar.” Here I beg to differ with Grey. Not only does the size correspond well, but whale sharks also have very wide, squarish heads, enormous pectoral fins and are covered with white spots (admittedly, Grey mentions only “a few” white spots, but the degree of spotting in whale sharks is highly variable among individuals and by body region [Richard Martin pers. comm.]). Nonetheless, Grey stated: “I figured out that the fish ... was not a harmless whale-shark but one of the man-eating monsters of the South Pacific. Then I was more frightened than I remember for a long time.” Despite his dramatic style, I would identify Grey’s shark as a whale shark long before suggesting that what he saw was a living C. megalodon or, say, an enormous tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier). (This latter species may exceed 5 m [16 ft] in length and has a characteristically squarish snout. Grey caught a great number of tiger sharks in his day and was probably thinking of them when he wrote the above quoted phrase.)

The second sighting took place in 1933, again off the coast of Rangiroa. Aboard the S.S. Manganui, Grey and his son Loren were returning to San Francisco after a fishing trip to Tahiti. One evening at about 5:00 p.m., Loren was at the rail when he saw a small flock of spiralling sea gulls and, near by, an area of yellow water (5):



At first I thought it was a whale, but when the great brown tail rose in the ship’s wake as the fish moved ponderously away from the liner, I knew immediately that it was a monstrous shark. The huge round head appeared to be at least 10 to 12 feet across if not more ... It was my belief that this huge, yellowish, barnacled creature must have been at least 40 or 50 feet long. He was not a whale shark: the whale shark has a distinctive white purplish green appearance with large brown spots and much narrower head. So what was he---perhaps a true prehistoric monster of the deep?

What we had seen was something [that] no ichthyologist had ever dreamed existed. The largest known specimen of this type of shark, generally known as a sand shark or black-tipped shark, had hardly been known to exceed a length of about 15 feet.