Artistic
impression of a megalodon encounter (© William M. Rebsamen)
It was only ever
going to be a matter of time before ShukerNature boldly went where it had never
gone before, by confronting what may well be not only the most terrifying cryptid
of all time but also the most controversial one – the cryptid that dare not
speak its name, in fact, because that name is…Megalodon!
Yes indeed, one
of the most contentious, divisive subjects in the entire field of cryptozoology must
surely be the putative existence into modern times of the giant megalodon
shark, judging at least from the many heated, turbo-charged exchanges that it
has engendered down through the years. For what it's worth, and more than two
decades on from when I first investigated the case, I personally think that
this monstrous sea creature's present-day survival is an unlikely prospect, but
it is certainly an inordinately interesting one to research, as I rediscovered
when preparing its greatly-expanded, updated section within my newest book Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors
(2016). So now, having adopted in that book the role of devil's advocate (as
required per the brief issued by the publishers of its original edition, In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors), this is
what I wrote:
The following
lines were penned by Victorian naturalist Philip H. Gosse, and appeared in his
book The Romance of Natural History (1860):
Half concealed beneath the bony brow, the little
green eye gleams with so peculiar an expression of hatred, such a concentration
of fiendish malice, of quiet, calm, settled villany, that no other countenance
that I have ever seen at all resembles. Though I have seen many a shark, I could
never look at that eye without feeling my flesh creep, as it were, on my bones.
This graphic
description vividly expresses the galeophobic feelings of many people when
confronted with sharks, especially the most feared species of all - Carcharodon
carcharias, the great white shark. The world's largest living species of
carnivorous fish (excluding plankton-eaters), it is known to attain a total
length of up to 21 ft, but
unconfirmed sightings of far bigger specimens have occasionally been recorded,
mostly in tropical or sub-tropical waters. Could such sharks really exist -
and, if they do, could they prove to be something even more terrifying than
oversized great whites?
The
great white shark (public domain)
In his book Sharks
and Rays of Australian Seas (1964), Antipodean ichthyologist Dr David G.
Stead documented an astonishing account that had been narrated to him back in
1918 by some fishermen at Port Stephens, New South
Wales. They claimed that their heavily-weighted
crayfish pots, each measuring 3.5 ft long and
containing several crayfishes (each weighing several pounds), had been
effortlessly towed away by a ghostly white shark of enormous size. Estimates
given by the fishermen ranged from the length of the wharf on which they had
been standing, which measured 115 ft, to, in the
opinion of one of the men, "300 ft long at
least"! Even though Stead discounted these gargantuan estimates as the
product of fear, he was clearly impressed by their claim, stating in his book:
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...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...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...these were prosaic and rather stolid men, not given
to 'fish stories' nor even to talking at all about their catches. Further, they
knew that the person they were talking to (myself) had heard all the fish
stories years before!...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.
Surprise and
shock at unexpectedly encountering an awesome Moby Dick of the shark world may
well have helped to distort their assessment. Yet even if we accordingly allow
a very generous margin of exaggeration, the result is still a creature of far
greater size than one would expect for the great white shark. Perhaps the most
telling aspect of this episode, however, is that the men were so shaken, after
seeing whatever it was they saw, that they weighed anchors straight away, fled
back to port, and refused to go out to sea again for several days. This is
hardly the behaviour that one would expect from people who know that they will
not earn any money if they do not go out to sea - unless their story is true,
and they really were frightened by a monstrous shark.
Zane
Grey (public domain)
An immense
shark, sporting a square head, huge pectoral fins, a green-yellow body speckled
with a few white spots (encrusted barnacles?), and measuring considerably more
in total length than his 35-40-ft boat was spied in 1927 or 1928 by Zane Grey,
while sailing off the French Polynesian island of Rangiroa (about 220 miles northeast of Tahiti) in the South
Pacific's Tuamotu Archipelago. Grey was a famous, prolific writer of Western
novels, but he was also a passionate angler and the author of eight angling
books, including Tales of Tahitian Waters (1931), containing his account
of his shark sighting.
Yet despite his
experience in handling fishes of record-breaking size, Grey was unable to
identify this immense specimen. A square head is certainly not reminiscent of a
great white shark, of any size, but rather a whale shark Rhincodon typus.
This harmless planktivorous species constitutes the world's largest fish of any
type, with a maximum confirmed length of 41.5
ft (but likely to attain up to 50
ft), and it does have a very broad, massive head. Then again, read
the next report...
In 1933, when
about 100 miles northwest of
Rangiroa aboard the S.S. Manganui, Grey's son, Loren, also caught sight
of a gigantic shark, once again yellowish in colour but flecked with white,
which revealed a great brown tail, plus a massive head that seemed to be at
least 10-12 ft across, and a
total body length estimated by Grey Jnr to be not less than 40-50
ft. However, he was convinced that it was not a whale
shark. So what was it?
Whale
shark at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (public domain)
According to
traditional beliefs of the Polynesian fishermen who work along the coasts of
New South Wales, these waters are frequented by a frightening type of sea
creature that they respectfully refer to as the Lord of the Deep. They liken it
to a gigantic white shark, measuring about 100
ft in length. Is this what the Greys spied, and could this be what
carried away the pots of the lobster fishermen in 1918?
In his book Shark!
(1961), Thomas Helm documented his own (undated) encounter with a giant mystery
shark. He and some other people were on board his 60-ft trawler in the Caribbean Sea when they spied
a huge shark that he claimed was "not an inch less than thirty feet".
He was able to estimate this accurately by comparing its length to that of his
trawler; and he also noted that when it swam underneath, its pectoral fins were
clearly visible on either side of the boat. He and the other eyewitnesses were
unable to identify its species, but he stated that it "most closely
resembled the [great] white shark".
During the
1970s, a Mrs T. Brinks and her keen sailor husband Dave were sailing their
40-ft boat about 100 miles west of Monterey Bay, California, when they
encountered what looked like a great white shark but of huge proportions. When
it swam alongside their vessel, they could see that in total length it equalled
that of the boat. After a few moments, it veered to the west, swimming
underneath their boat before disappearing (they actually felt the boat rise as
it swam beneath it). The Brinkses later recalled their encounter with one of
Mrs Brinks's work colleagues, Jon Ziegler, from Idaho, who presented
the details in a letter published online by Strange Magazine in 2005.
More recently,
in Season 3, Episode 7 (entitled 'Mega Jaws'), first screened on 18 March 2009,
the cryptozoological TV show MonsterQuest unsuccessfully sought a giant
black carnivorous shark occasionally sighted in the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of
California), off Mexico's Baja California peninsula. Fisherman witnesses claim
that it is 20-60 ft long, resembles
a huge great white shark except for its dark colouration and massive tail, and
have dubbed it El Demonio Negro ('the Black Demon'). Might it be a melanistic
great white (a huge great white that was fairly dark dorsally and measured
almost 20 ft long was hauled
up out of the Sea of Cortez by commercial fishermen in April 2013, and parts of
this sea are now known to serve as a great white shark nursery), or could it be
something very different indeed?
Many
ichthyologists are willing to consider the possibility that there are larger
specimens of great white shark in existence than have so far been verified by
science, but some cryptozoologists are far bolder. Their explanation for the
Lord of the Deep is far more spectacular - a terrifying prehistoric
resurrection, featuring a living leviathan from the ancient waters.
My mother Mary Shuker holding a fossil
megalodon tooth with a 2 pence coin alongside it for scale purposes (© Dr Karl Shuker)
The great white
shark once had an even bigger relative - the megalodon or megatooth shark C.
megalodon ('big tooth'), sometimes placed in its own genus, Carcharocles.
Named after its huge teeth, which were triangular in shape, up to 7.25
in high, and edged with sharp serrations, the megalodon was once
believed to measure as much as 98 ft long, but this
early estimate of its size was later shown to be incorrect, and was refined to
a much more sedate yet still unnerving 43
ft. However, after various extra-large megalodon teeth, some
almost 6 in long, were
unearthed a while ago at the aptly-dubbed Sharktooth Hill near Bakersfield,
California, ichthyologists conceded that certain specimens might have attained
a total length of up to 55 ft.
The megalodon is
presently known almost entirely from its huge teeth and some individual
vertebrae. However, one notable exception is an associated vertebral column of
approximately 150 individual centra (vertebra bodies) that range in state from
fragmentary to nearly complete. In the major monograph Great White Sharks:
The Biology of Carcharodon carcharias (1996), edited by Drs A. Peter
Klimley and David G. Ainley, shark experts Drs Michael D. Gottfried, Leonard
J.V. Compagno, and S. Curtis Bowman suggested on the basis of the
previously-mentioned vertebral column's dimensions and other megalodon remains
that in order to support its substantial dentition, the megalodon's jaws would
have been "somewhat more robust, larger, and thicker, and with
correspondingly more massive muscles to operate them" than those of the
great white shark. In overall appearance, they proposed that the megalodon
"would likely have had a streamlined, fusiform shape similar to, but more
robust than, the [great] white shark and other lamnids, with more bulging jaws
and a broader, blunter, and relatively more massive head".
If this
reconstruction is accurate, might it explain the Greys' comments about the
massive or square-shaped head of their respective giant mystery sharks?
Moreover, it is believed that the fins of the megalodon were proportional to
its larger size, and hence were bigger than those of the great white. Could
this therefore explain the huge pectoral fins sported by the giant mystery
shark sighted by Zane Grey?
Once believed to
be an exclusively near-surface, continental shelf dweller in tropical and
subtropical seas, the megalodon is now thought to have been sufficiently adaptable
to have inhabited a wide range of environments, from shallow coastal waters and
swampy coastal lagoons to sandy littorals and offshore deepwater abodes,
exhibiting a transient lifestyle, and of near-cosmopolitan geographical
distribution. Adult specimens, however, were not common in shallow-water
habitats (thus explaining the relative rarity of modern-day Lord of the Deep
and other super-sized great white lookalike sightings?), and mostly lurked
offshore, but may have moved between coastal and oceanic habitats during
different stages of the life cycle.
Alongside
a life-sized recreation of megalodon jaws (© Dr Karl Shuker)
The megalodon
first appeared in the fossil record around 16 million years ago during the
mid-Miocene, and was undoubtedly one of the most formidable marine predators of
all time. So why, according to mainstream zoology, did it become extinct (if,
indeed, it did!)? As yet, there is no definitive answer to this key question.
However, the cooling of the oceans that occurred during the late Pliocene and
Pleistocene in conjunction with the Ice Ages (an occurrence not conducive to
the megalodon's survival, as it favoured warmer, tropical waters), coupled with
the resulting migration towards colder, high-latitude regions by the larger whales
that constituted its preferred prey (megalodon tooth marks on the fossil bones
of such cetaceans are well documented), is the scenario most favoured as the
cause of this giant shark's apparent extinction. Also, during the Ice Ages a
substantial volume of seawater became locked inside continental ice sheets,
thereby resulting in a significant worldwide fall in sea levels, which is
something else that was not compatible with megalodon survival, restricting the
number of nursery sites available for its juveniles' safe maturation.
Yet in view of
how adaptable the megalodon was in terms of the variety of marine environments
that it could inhabit, might it have once again been sufficiently adaptable to
withstand these changes? True, the fossil record does not contain ample
evidence of its survival in regions where water temperatures had significantly
declined during the Pliocene. Then again, as pointed out by Gottfried et al.,
this species may have existed in environments "...that have gone
unrecognized due to preservational and/or collecting biases" – a
significant but all-too-often ignored or neglected factor when making
assumptions based upon the known fossil record.
Also, in view of
the several exceedingly large whale species existing then, and still today (the
whale hunting industry's depredations notwithstanding), the megalodon would not
be short of suitable prey (big cetaceans, along with pinnipeds and fish too,
are believed to have constituted its preferred diet). And what if, like the
huge carnivorous sperm whale, it also sought out sizeable deepwater species
such as giant squids, common in tropical as well as temperate seas, but for
which, as is often true from deepwater habitats, there would be little if any
readily available confirmation from the fossil record?
Megalodon tooth with two great white shark
teeth and a metric ruler (© Kalan/Parzi/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)
Even if faced
with competition from today's largest carnivorous cetaceans, might there still
be enough suitable prey out there in the vast oceans to sustain a viable
megalodon population? After all, even large migratory whales like the blue
whale and grey whale still spend part of their year in sub-tropical waters; and
during those periods that these cetaceans spend in more polar zones, megalodons
could subsist instead upon big fishes like the basking shark, whale shark, and
abundant smaller species existing in sizeable shoals, plus giant squids.
Irrespective of
the precise reason(s) why it died out, the findings of a 2014 study by
American researchers Drs Catalina Pimiento and Christopher F. Clements
(published by the journal PLoS ONE) suggest that the megalodon most
likely did so approximately 2.6 million years ago, during the late Pliocene (a
few have opined that it may have persisted into the early Pleistocene).
However, these dates fail to take into account a dramatic, highly controversial
revelation that occurred at the close of the 1950s. Back in 1875, the British
oceanographic survey vessel H.M.S. Challenger had hauled up two
megalodon teeth from the manganese dioxide-rich red clay deposit at a depth of 14,000 ft on the sea bed south of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean. When, in 1959,
these teeth were dated by Russian scientist Dr Wladimir Tschernezky, the
scientific world received a considerable shock. Knowing the rate of formation
of the manganese dioxide layer covering them, he had measured the thickness of
the layer - and from the results that he had obtained, he announced in a paper
published on 24 October 1959 in the prestigious
scientific journal Nature that one of the teeth was only 24,000 years
old, and the other was a mere 11,000 years old.
In short, if
Tschernezky's results were accurate, the megalodon shark was still alive at the
end of the Pleistocene epoch 11,700 years ago. And if this is true, it
would again lend credibility to speculation among some cryptozoologists that
this incredible species may still be alive today. It is nothing if not
intriguing, incidentally, that these two enigmatic teeth were obtained in much
the same (Tahitian) locality as that of the giant sharks respectively
encountered by the Greys. Just a coincidence?
HMS
Challenger, 1858 engraving (public domain)
Having said
that, there remains much contention among current ichthyologists and
palaeontologists regarding Tschernezky's results. The main argument against
them is that the teeth may have originally been reworked from older strata, as
has been discussed earlier in this present book with respect to various alleged
post-Mesozoic dinosaur and plesiosaur fossils. Also, there can be considerable
variation in results obtained for the dating of manganese dioxide deposits,
depending upon whether maximum or minimum deposition rates for them are being
used, and such deposits also vary in relation to a number of fluctuating
external factors such as the concentration in seawater of iron ions and
photosynthesising plankton. Whether such variations can be so extreme as to
yield a date as recent as only 11,000 years ago as opposed to one of at least
2.6 million years ago, conversely, has yet to be confirmed.
Also worthy of
note here is the following statement from the earlier-cited paper by Pimiento
and Clements:
In a very small proportion of simulations
(1.5%), the inferred date of extinction fell after 0.1 Ma. In six simulations
(0.06%) the inferred date of extinction fell after the present day (and thus
the species could not be considered as extinct). However, because in the vast
majority of the 10,000 simulations (>99.9%) the extinction time was inferred
to have occurred before the present day, we reject the null hypothesis (that
the species is extant) and the popular claims of present day survival of C.
megalodon.
In short,
although too small in number to be considered statistically significant, from
the vast array of fossil samples utilised in their simulations a few modern-day
inferred extinction dates did occur, as well as some with an inferred
extinction date of under 100,000 years. How can these be explained and which
specific samples were responsible, I wonder?
All in all, if
they still exist it would be very interesting to see those two teeth that were
dated so contentiously by Tschernezky back in the late 1950s subjected now to
modern-day dating techniques. The most common method for Quaternary
(Pleistocene and Holocene) remains – which these teeth would be if
Tschernezky's age estimates for them of 24,000 and 11,000 years respectively
are correct – is radiocarbon (carbon-14) dating, but it generally cannot date
specimens older than around 60,000 years. However, a more recent and
potentially much more useful technique, which has already been proved to be
effective with fossil teeth, is electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR).
As noted in a 14
February 2014 Spectroscopy Europe online paper authored by Dr Mathieu
Duval from the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana
(CENIEH) in Burgos, Spain, optimum time range application for EPR dating of
tooth enamel lies between c.50,000 years and c.800,000 years. Moreover, in some
specific conditions, the real time-range limits for EPR dating may be
potentially pushed from present-day to around 2–3 million years. This
means that EPR dating not only could demonstrate unequivocally whether
Tschernezky's unexpectedly recent age estimates for these two very contentious
megalodon teeth were correct, but also might still be able to provide an age
for them even if they actually do date back to the time of the megalodon's
official demise, i.e. approximately 2.6 million years ago – something that
radiocarbon dating could not achieve.
A
white fossil megalodon tooth (public domain)
One final
comment regarding giant, ostensibly anachronistic shark teeth: in his authoritative
work The Fishes of Australia Part 1: The Sharks, Rays, Devil-Fish, and Other
Primitive Fishes of Australia and New Zealand (1940), Gilbert P. Whitley,
then Curator of Fishes at the Natural History Museum in Sydney, Australia,
stated:
Fresh-looking [megalodon] teeth measuring 4 by 3 1/4
inches have been dredged from the sea floor, which indicates that if not
actually still living, this gigantic species must have become extinct within a
recent period.
Unfortunately,
he didn't provide further details concerning these bold claims. Fossil
megalodon teeth are generally black or grey, less commonly brown and even gold,
but white specimens are also known – and although they too are fossilised,
these latter ones can look deceptively recent in appearance, so Whitley may
have been mistaken. As for the teeth noted by him, sadly I have no knowledge of
where they currently reside.
Megalodon vs the giant pliosaur Liopleurodon (© Hodari Nundu)
In summary: Dr Stead considered that the shark responsible for towing away the fishermens' lobster pots could have been a living megalodon, but just how likely is this terrifying prospect? I am well aware that by virtue of its very nature, the megalodon must surely appear to be one of this book's least likely creatures to survive in the present day. Having said that: if, as noted here, this monstrous carnivorous shark dined upon large whales, pinnipeds, fishes, and (especially) giant squids, moving up and down through the sea depths in search of its varied prey, its huge food requirements could surely be met. And if, as predicted from palaeontological studies, it only occasionally entered the oceans' surface waters as an adult, this might explain how in spite of its great size it has succeeded in eluding science, and why even fishermen in its general area of distribution only rarely catch sight of it.
Certainly, as
someone who in 2008 flew from Santiago in Chile to Easter Island and, in so
doing, spent no less than 4 hours travelling continuously across a seemingly
limitless blue expanse of water with never so much as the tiniest speck of land
in sight, yet knowing full well that this was in reality only a minute portion
of the Pacific's full mid-oceanic extent, I feel qualified to offer the opinion
that in such an unimaginably vast yet (for the greater part) only sparsely visited
expanse of water relatively speaking, even creatures as huge as megalodons
could surely exist just beneath the surface without ever being seen by humans
for much if not all of their life. Here they could readily avoid the occasional
cruiser or other sizeable sea vessel crossing the immense mid-ocean stretches
of water upon which the various Pacific island groups are scattered like mere
confetti, and only occasionally approach the shores of such islands where they
may conceivably attract brief attention before travelling back out to the open
seas once more.
We know that in
Pliocene times megalodons occurred in coastal waters (albeit only rarely as
adults), because the fossil record tells us so. But what if megalodons also
lived in mid-oceanic stretches where any dead specimens either were consumed by
other marine carnivores or became fossilised in locations where such remains
can never be uncovered, such as the sea bottom – except, possibly, for a few
anachronistic teeth dredged up by a research vessel?
Artistic
impression of a megalodon pursuing two Eobalaenoptera whales (© Karen
Carr-Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)
And even if such
a creature is spied once in a while when far out to sea, by some
ocean-going tourists or bold fishermen venturing further out than usual from
their coastal zone, what will they see? Just a triangular dorsal fin resembling
a slightly larger-than-normal great white's, cutting silently through the
water? Who would think to report that as anything special?
However, one
could also argue that if the megalodon has indeed survived into the modern day,
why was it not reported by whalers during the whaling age? Great white sharks
were frequently attracted to harpooned, massively-bleeding whales, sometimes
causing problems for whalers trying to land these huge, dying sea mammals or
their carcases. How much greater a problem, therefore, would megalodons have
posed? Yet I am not aware of any whaling records describing encounters with
sharks that might have been megalodons.
As for smaller,
juvenile megalodons, surely these would be hooked or entangled in netting from
time to time, just like similar-sized adult great whites are? Yet again,
however, there do not appear to be records of this, unless any such juveniles
that may have been caught looked similar enough to adult great whites for
anglers not to have considered them worthy of being brought to zoological
attention?
Fossil
whale vertebra bitten in half by a megalodon and bearing deep tooth-mark
grooves from it (© Jayson Kowinsky/Wikipedia - CC BY 3.0 licence)
Also, if the
megalodon still exists there would surely be big whales out there that have survived
a megalodon attack yet carry the scars created by such a monster's huge teeth,
but again I am unaware of any records of this. Then again, any whale surviving
a megalodon attack would need to be very big indeed, and such individuals
probably remain far out of sight in the open oceans, and those not surviving
such an attack would be devoured by the victorious megalodon, with any remains
simply sinking to the ocean floor.
Yet another
anomaly if the megalodon is indeed still alive today is why no modern-day
megalodon teeth have ever been found, bearing in mind that sharks shed numerous
teeth every year, and that assemblages of shark teeth from other species have
been procured from the sea floor. Then again, perhaps some modern megalodon
teeth have been obtained, but, in view of how sought-after their fossil
equivalents are by collectors (and expensive too!), have simply not been
publicly revealed.
Having said all
of this, there is a notable modern-day precedent for large sharks remaining
hidden from science. In November 1976, a major new
species of very large shark was accidentally captured by a research vessel
anchored off the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Attempting to swallow one of the
ship's parachute anchors, it had choked to death, despite its enormous mouth,
which swiftly earned its species a very appropriate name - the megamouth shark Megachasma
pelagios. Measuring up to 18 ft long, this very
distinctive species has since been recorded from waters all around the world,
and observations of living specimens fitted with tracking devices have revealed
that it undergoes vertical migration - staying in the depths of the sea during
the day, and rising to the surface only at night. This explains how such a
large and widely-distributed shark species had successfully managed to evade
scientific detection until as late a date as 1976.
In fact, a
megamouth – or some other very large, formally undescribed species of deepwater
shark – may actually have been seen and photographed by a scientific team a
full 10 years earlier. On 15 August 1966, the San Mateo Times, a
Californian newspaper, carried the following very intriguing report:
Undersea cameras of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography
have photographed a colossal shark-like fish that is unfamiliar and may prefer
living in the darkest depths of the Pacific.
Scripps' Dr. John D. Isaacs, speaking at a weekend
conference, estimated the fish at 15-20 feet in length and three to six feet thick at its widest.
The species could not be determined, he said, because
of the unmanned camera's limited field which only allowed picturing the fish's
gills and pectoral fin.
"It is probably a shark, but a shark the likes
of which we have never seen before," he said. The fish was photographed at
a depth of 6,OOO feet off San Clemente Island, which is about 75 miles south of Los Angeles.
Since the first
megamouth was caught off Oahu in 1976, several have been washed ashore or
documented in waters off California, lending further support to the possibility
that the Scripps's mystery shark was a specimen of this very big species – always
assuming, of course, that it wasn't a juvenile megalodon...?
Incidentally,
crypto-sceptics have suggested that the megalodon could not exist as a
deepwater species because it would require all manner of morphological
specialisations, but in view of the fact that the only physical remains that we
have of it are teeth and vertebrae, how can anyone say with certainty that it
didn't – or doesn't – possess any such specialisations?
Bearing in mind,
therefore, that a mere 40 years ago the megamouth was still unseen and undiscovered
by science, the prospect for prehistoric persistence of the megalodon cannot be
entirely denied out of hand – however much we may wish to banish from our minds
the disturbing image of a rapacious, flesh-eating shark at least twice the size
of the current record-holder for the great white, cruising anonymously beneath
the surface of the Pacific in the 21st Century.
Megalodon
shark (grey for maximum estimate, red for conservative estimate), whale shark
(violet), great white shark (green), and human (black), to scale (©
Scarlet23/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)
Last – and least
– of all but requiring a mention here if only because of how much confusion it
caused (and still causes) among viewers not well-versed in cryptozoology is the
infamous 'mockumentary'/'docufiction' Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives,
which was first aired on the American TV network Discovery Channel in 2013,
concerning the alleged modern-day survival of this giant shark species. The
programme has an entry on Wikipedia that summarises its history very succinctly
as follows:
The story, with only short disclaimers at the beginning and ending
indicating that it is fictional, revolves around the loss of a pleasure boat
and crew off the coast of South Africa and an ensuing investigation that points
to an attack by a member of the species megalodon, a prehistoric shark
thought to be long extinct. Its format is that of a documentary that includes
accounts of "professionals" in various fields related to Megalodon.
It follows a similar format to another docufiction
aired by Discovery Channel, Mermaids: The Body Found.
The show, like Mermaids, came under equal criticism and
scrutiny by both scientists and ordinary viewers due to the attempt to present
fiction as a non-fiction documentary. Despite the disclaimers, some people
actually believed they were watching a real documentary while others were
offended that a docufiction
show would be aired on a channel that had been known for true science shows. It
should also be noted [that], unlike Mermaids, the disclaimers were
barely even present, in addition to the talk show that
was strongly saying and asking if people believed what was presented in Megalodon
showed that the species was still alive. This misinformation likely caused the
mass misconception that the shark species was still alive.
No it didn't –
speculation on this subject was rife long before the programme was produced. As
for whether the modern-day existence of the megalodon actually is – or is not –
a misconception, this has already been discussed soberly and at length in the
present section of this book. In my opinion, however, any attempt to do so in
an equally rational, objective manner elsewhere is always likely to be
overshadowed nowadays by the Discovery mockumentary's unhelpful contribution to
the subject, which is a tragedy for those seeking to bestow gravitas and
credibility upon serious cryptozoological debate.
This ShukerNature blog article on the megalodon is exclusively
excerpted from my recent mega-book Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors: The Creatures That Time Forgot?
(Coachwhip Publications: Darke County, 2016).
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