Great White Sharks Were Eaten by Megalodon: ‘EVERYTHING Was Prey’ for the 18m Monster

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

APEX PREDATOR: Nothing was off-limits for the 18m megalodon (Pic: DS)

GREAT White Sharks were probably eaten by the monstrously-sized Megalodon which hunted “just about everything”, a shark expert has exclusively told Daily Star Online.

Richard Peirce, a conservationist who has written five books about sharks, said the extinct 18m Megalodon was unrivalled as a killing-machine — as shown in this year's blockbuster movie The Meg.

Megadalons shared Earth’s oceans with Great Whites more than three million years ago.

But Great Whites were pipsqueaks in relation to their terrifying cousins, at just 6m in length.

In fact, in terms of size The Meg knocks poor Jaws out of the water.

Great Whites could even have been on the menu, with fossil records showing megalodon bite marks on much bigger 9m whales.

Mr Peirce added: “Given megalodon's sheer size and power about everything would have been prey for it.

”He added: “All sharks are prehistoric - they go back 400 million years. Humans have only been around 200,000 years.

“That's one of the amazing things about sharks. We're wiping out one of the oldest creatures in the oceans.”

COLOSSAL: Humans are tiny in comparison, as shown in The Meg (Pic: THE MEG)

The researcher, who has been giving educational talks in schools, added: “Someone asked me in a school in Surrey if the megalodon still exists.

“So I asked 'Who has seen The Meg?' and almost all of them — there must have been about 200 of them — put their hands up.

“They all thought it was great fun and none of them really took it seriously,” he said.

“I think of The Meg in the same way as Jurassic Park - great fun and tongue-in-cheek.”

He said: “I think the basis of the reason is they hit three basic human fear buttons: the fear of being eaten alive, the fear of being out of your element — you're in the water not on land — and the fear of the unknown.

“If you think about swimming on the surface of the water with 50ft or something of water below you… the idea there might be some hidden dangerous monster down there that you can't see, that's absolutely terrifying.

“The other thing is history has always painted sharks as monsters,” he added.

“Sharks get a worse reputation and a worse judgement than lions, tigers… any other predator.”

And, in good news for shark fans, it turns out British waters are swimming with sharks, including the odd report of Great Whites. 

Mr Peirce said: “I’ve talked to over a thousand children over the last few days, most of then don't know we've got sharks in our waters.

“They're a bit surprised we've got 35 species of sharks in our waters — including some of the really exciting guys — and maybe that's part of the obsession, they seem so far away.”

The Meg is available to own on digital download from December 3 and available on DVD and blu-ray from December 10, available to pre-order now.

Source: www.dailystar.co.uk