Megalodon: The largest shark that ever lived

Megalodon is the "ocean giant" that many people picture when they think of ancient seas. It is long extinct and was probably the largest shark ever to have lived. It was a lamniform shark, related to today's great white, but it was not a dinosaur and not a marine reptile — it was a true shark.

Its body

A shark's skeleton is made of cartilage, which rarely fossilises, so almost no complete megalodon skeleton has ever been found. Scientists mainly use its huge teeth, a few vertebrae and the body proportions of close living relatives such as the great white to estimate its length, shape and appearance. Across different studies, it may have reached 15 to 18 metres — longer than a bus.

Its teeth were enormous, with fine serrations suited to gripping large prey. But precisely because the body was cartilage, we cannot see what the whole animal looked like directly from fossils.

Where it lived and what it ate

Megalodon was an apex predator, feeding on large marine animals, including whales, dolphins and other big fish. It lived from the early Miocene to the early Pliocene across the world's warm, productive oceans. Exactly how predators, climate change and competition drove it to extinction is still being debated.

Where its fossils were found

Megalodon teeth are common finds in marine deposits around the world. Because the teeth are hard and numerous, they are the most reliable clue we have for mapping its former range.

What the fossils tell us — and what they do not

Because so little of the skeleton survives, our understanding of its length, shape and colour depends heavily on estimates and reconstruction. So the megalodon in the exhibit is a best-effort guess built from the evidence available — not a photograph the fossils left behind. It should not be treated as a fully certain scientific portrait.

A note for grown-ups

You could talk with a child about why sharks so rarely leave fossils: their skeleton is cartilage. That is a great chance to learn exactly what fossils can and cannot tell us.