Question: Hi! I have a question that's been bothering me..it's known that dinosaurs existed.Is it possible for a mythical creature like a extra large size shark (Megalodon) to still grow and live in nowadays,cause there are lots of documentaries about those sharks on youtube.

Asked by sinn3rftw to Alice, Andi, Bas, Daniel, Rhian on 12 Mar 2015.

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  1. Photo: Alice MarzocchiAlice Marzocchi
    answered on 12 Mar 2015:

    Hi!
    Well, the Megalodon is not just a mythical creature, they actually existed a long time ago, from about 16 million years ago (during the Miocene, which is the time period I study in my PhD!). They are thought to have been some of the biggest and most powerful predators among the vertebrates.
    However, scientists think they went extinct about 2.6 million years ago. This idea was confirmed by some recent studies from last year, so it sounds like these huge creatures are probably not there anymore. But I guess we can’t know for sure and I don’t know more details about these studies confirming their extinction.

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  2. Photo: Rhian MearaRhian Meara
    answered on 18 Mar 2015:

    good question!

    well I agree with Alice, that these creatures really did exist in the past. As for the future, who knows? At the moment we have nothing like this on the earth, but in the future, maybe a new predator will evolve and become huge like the dinosaurs or the megalodon? I would say though that most big predators haven’t lasted well – it takes a lot of food to keep them alive – so maybe we have reached a time where only relatively small predators develop as anything bigger wouldn’t survive?

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