Man? Man is certainly the deadliest predator in today's world.
Yes man is now , but man had nothing to do with the extinction of Megatooyth .
posted by Dirck
over 2 years ago
There were two hominid species living with megalodon during the Pleistocene. Some theories suggest they were all killed off together by climate change.
There were two hominid species living with megalodon during the Pleistocene. Some theories suggest they were all killed off together by climate change.
yes they drowned
posted by yichel
over 2 years ago
Bacteria?
Alcohol poisoning?
Plankton?
I am betting something microscopic.
Sorry, twenty years ago should have been twenty million years ago. There's been lots of debate about what killed what some call the largest fish ever to live and climate change is offered as a possibility. Curious about the question, some months ago I did some research on the subject. My attention has been focused on those black and white, oversized porpoises so beloved by children at oceanariums: orcinus orca (sometimes called killer whales). Along with having the largest brain of any mammal and recognition that they have a language and a culture (1985), they are the only known predators of great white sharks and hammerhead sharks. They love shark livers.
Anyway, the first orcas appeared three million years ago. Megatooth disappeared a million years later. Did Megatooth fall victim to pods of orca that acquired a taste for its liver? Don't know. But, isn't it comforting to think those cuddly black and white clowns may be the deadliest ocean predators ever to live?
If we ever translate their language, we may learn the answer. Hmmm. Sounds like a book.
No they didn't drown, their food supply disappeared.
Could be. However, there's a little bit of overweening pride when we say that either we or nature wiped out a species. Probably, there were a number of factors that led to the demise of Megatooth, but the orca developed a taste for shark lives a long, long time ago. There's been a lot of concern about the falling numbers of great white and hammerhead sharks and human fishermen were instantly suspect. However, recent discovery of mid-ocean orca pods in tropical waters casts a new light on orca preying upon sharks.
By the way, a marine biologist witnessed a female orca teaching her young how to kill a great white and then showing the youngster where the delicious shark liver could be found.
For that matter, what role did wolves play in the extinction of megafauna at the end of the Ice Age. Did wolves pressure already vulnerable species to extinction just as humans ares suspected of doing? Did wolves and humans share in such extinctions?
I raise the point about wolves because one descendent of the saber toothed cat is the cougar. An interesting characteristic of the cougar is its tendency to climb trees to avoid dogs. Now, when did it learn to climb trees to avoid dogs, I wonder?. Indians had dogs but dogs were vastly outnumbered by wolves until Europeans arrived. Is it possible that the cougar survived by climbing trees to escape wolf packs, something its larger, stronger now-extinct, saber toothed cousin never learned to do?
