News Paleontology

Megatooth sharks may have been higher on the food chain than any ocean animal ever

The megalodon shark and its direct ancestors may have been ‘hyper apex predators'

two museum works place a 8-meter-long model of a megalodon shark in a museum display

This 8-meter-long model of a megalodon shark, on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is only half the maximum size that the top predator could grow to.

Richard Drew/AP photo

By Asa Stahl

- More than 2 years ago

Whenever paleontologist Dana Ehret gives talks about the 15-meter-long prehistoric sharks known as megalodons, he likes to make a joke: “What did megalodon eat?” asks Ehret, Assistant Curator of Natural History at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.