[HN Gopher] New analysis of tooth minerals confirms megalodon sh...
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New analysis of tooth minerals confirms megalodon shark was warm-
blooded
Author : weatherlight
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-07-03 13:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| mkmk wrote:
| I recently discovered that megalodon teeth are ubiquitous to the
| point of being fairly affordable (at least if you're not very
| picky). Mind blowing that you can have something that's a few
| million years old just sitting on your shelf to look at -- seems
| like it could be a great reminder of how small and impermanent we
| are, in the grand scheme of things.
| RegularOpossum wrote:
| My cousin brought over his five year old recently and I showed
| the kid my small fossil collection. They thought I must have
| been rich but the most expensive piece was $50 and even then I
| knew I was over paying for it. I'm working on having one fossil
| from every geologic period.
| permo-w wrote:
| pedantic but I suppose it's mind blowing to have something a
| few million of years old on your shelf _that had DNA_ ,
| otherwise pretty much any old rock would do
| mkmk wrote:
| Yeah good point!
| [deleted]
| daigoba66 wrote:
| Another common spot to easily find Megalodon and other large
| shark teeth is the Savannah River just past the shipping ports.
| The river dredging from a few years ago created a few new
| "islands" where shark teeth are plentiful.
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| For a Quirks & Quarks interview on a related subject:
| https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/hammerhead-shark-breath-hold...
| akiselev wrote:
| Speaking of Megalodons, you can go dig for their teeth in
| Bakersfield, California at Sharktooth Hill [1]. They're very
| common - you're all but guaranteed to find one after spending a
| few days at the quarry. They were even selling plots of land for
| $10k a few years back but I found out about it too late :(
|
| Someday I hope to have enough to make a throne-like chair out of
| Megalodon teeth, sort of like the GoT throne made of iron swords.
|
| [1] https://www.sharktoothhillproperty.com/
| dryrun wrote:
| Why are they common there? From a Google search, they are
| supposed to have 278 teeth. Make it 300 if you will. Given the
| time we've known for this place, I would assume that even if
| there were 10 megalodon sharks dead there, the 3000 teeth would
| be long gone! Is this a cemetery for sharks? Was there like a
| giant megalodon pond that went dry?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It sounds like there are significantly more. Time adds up.
|
| Think of it this way. Megaladon existed for ~20 million
| years. If one died in this area every year, you would have
| 5.6 billion teeth
| akiselev wrote:
| I'm no paleontologist but I believe the megalodon
| continuously shed and replaced their teeth like modern
| sharks. Some extant species are known to replace all of their
| teeth on a monthly basis so if the megalodon replaced them
| that fast, a single shark would produce thousands of teeth a
| _year_. For over fifteen million years.
|
| Due to their shape and density, they were also more likely to
| quickly sink into sediment and avoid decomposition entirely.
| Then when the Pacific plate interacted with the North
| American plate, all of that ocean sediment was lifted up to
| form California.
|
| They're actually relatively uncommon on the west coast
| compared to the East coast (the Carolinas especially).
| Sharktooth hill has lots more fossils of seals, sea lions,
| turtles, birds, whales, and other marine life.
| saghm wrote:
| > Sharktooth hill has lots more fossils of seals, sea
| lions, turtles, birds, whales, and other marine life.
|
| I guess it must have been named because even a smaller
| number of shark teeth is less common than those other
| fossils in the area?
| permo-w wrote:
| also presumably because shark teeth are exciting
| n3storm wrote:
| I bet the name is because is because shark tooth is what
| somebody can recognise better. "Is this a seal or a fox
| skull?"
| akiselev wrote:
| I mean the megalodon specifically - likely a much bigger
| population lived in the Atlantic than the Pacific.
|
| I think miscellaneous shark teeth are the most common
| fossil at Sharktooth Hill, they're just not as big or
| interesting as the megalodon teeth because they're
| difficult for a layman to age. Most megalodon teeth are
| obvious due to their size and most people are happy with
| a 5-25 Mya estimate.
| dharmab wrote:
| Unlike humans, sharks continuously grow new teeth throughout
| their lives!
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery/sharks-never-
| run-...
| falcor84 wrote:
| I for one hope to grow new teeth when I'm older - see post
| from two days ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36563590
| qup wrote:
| I have a pretty sweet collection of megalodon teeth my
| grandfather found in the 80s. I found one myself as a kid, but it
| had one upper side busted. It was as big as my hand then, though.
|
| There's some kind of sea-floor phenomenon that causes teeth to
| wash up on the beach in Venice, Florida, with a great regularity.
| 30 years ago, there were a lot more teeth.
|
| Nowadays, scuba divers get most of them a couple hundred yards
| offshore at some underwater ledge, so they are more rare at the
| beach.
|
| A great time to go is after a hurricane.
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(page generated 2023-07-04 23:01 UTC)