Megalodon dies out
The largest predatory shark that ever lived disappears as its ocean changes around it.
- When
- Known to
- ± 200 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
Otodus megalodon's last well-dated teeth are around 3.6 million years old. The causes are layered: cooling seas restrict a warm-water species to shrinking habitat, several of its baleen whale prey species disappear in the same interval, and the great white shark — a faster, more agile competitor — is rising at the same time. Because its extinction is bracketed by a broader marine crisis, megalodon is best understood not as a lone casualty but as the most conspicuous member of a much larger loss.