Miocene_Mason Posted December 15, 2018 Share Posted December 15, 2018 Hey Guys, I have been busy lately so my participation on the forum has gone down. I hope I can get be back online more during the summer. But today, I have got a question: Where is the youngest Otodus (Carcharocles megalodon) known? A lot of places seem to say the meg went extinct in the Pleistocene but a paper I read seemed to revise this to the latest Pliocene (2.6 million years ago was their number) using some sort of mathematical sorcery. What I want to know is, where are the megs? They should be extremely rare but present in late Pliocene Marine strata. The you youngest megs I’ve seen are from the Pisco which can get to 3 million years ago. Anyone have any younger, or heard of any younger? I would assume that such formations of that exact age are rare, so it would not surprise me if there are no younger megs. I’m just curious. “...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin Happy hunting, Mason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidgy's Dad Posted December 15, 2018 Share Posted December 15, 2018 I've always understood 2.6 million years. Though some would claim they're still alive! Life's Good! Tortoise Friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmoceras Posted December 15, 2018 Share Posted December 15, 2018 They are found now and again in the Pliocene Red Crag Formation, but these are derived specimens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidgy's Dad Posted December 15, 2018 Share Posted December 15, 2018 Talk about timing! 3 Life's Good! Tortoise Friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted December 15, 2018 Share Posted December 15, 2018 At the Lee Creek Mine, megalodon teeth are somewhat common in the Sunken Meadow Member of the Yorktown Formation and don’t occur in the overlying Rushmere Member of the Yorktown Formation. Modern great whites occur in the Rushmere. Finding absolute ages of members isn’t always easy. I’ve heard around 4.5 million for the Sunken Meadow and 3.5 million for the Rushmere. keep in mind that reworked meg teeth can be found in younger formations. You might find references for meg teeth found in younger but unless they are found in good condition I would be skeptical. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brett Breakin' Rocks Posted December 15, 2018 Share Posted December 15, 2018 40 minutes ago, Al Dente said: At the Lee Creek Mine, megalodon teeth are somewhat common in the Sunken Meadow Member of the Yorktown Formation and don’t occur in the overlying Rushmere Member of the Yorktown Formation. Modern great whites occur in the Rushmere. Finding absolute ages of members isn’t always easy. I’ve heard around 4.5 million for the Sunken Meadow and 3.5 million for the Rushmere. keep in mind that reworked meg teeth can be found in younger formations. You might find references for meg teeth found in younger but unless they are found in good condition I would be skeptical. Just to add to the discussion .. I saw this post a few months ago on the Mace Brown Museum where Bobby discusses pushing that date back to 3.5 mya. They were working on a new paper that discusses it ... Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston July 29 · #sharkweek why and when did the #megatooth shark #carcharocles #megalodon aka #themeg become extinct? Recent studies have shown conclusively that C. megalodon is #extinct, with statistical analyses of fossil occurrence dates indicating that nearly all fossils date to the Pliocene or older - meaning that C. megalodon did not survive into the ice age. Research by CCNHM paleontologist RW Boessenecker (Dr B and colleagues @paleo_d, @tetrameryx, Doug Long, Morgan Churchill, and Evan Martin show that C. megalodon did not even make it into the late Pliocene- becoming extinct about 3.5 million years ago, based on a reanalysis of published fossil data. Stay tuned for this study, currently in review. If C. megalodon went extinct about 3-4 million years ago, why did it go extinct? One popular hypothesis is that it became extinct alongside many species of extinct marine mammals and seabirds during a period of faunal change in the late Pliocene; however this was a patchwork event happening at different times in different places and cannot explain a global extinction. Another hypothesis is the loss of tiny baleen whales: despite its large size, some evidence suggests C. megalodon targeted small marine mammals. Another likely and completely unappreciated possibility is the evolution of the modern great white shark - it appears in marine rocks worldwide by about 4-5 million years ago, just before the last occurrences of C. megalodon. #extinction #evolution #shark #sharks #fossil #fossils #paleo #paleontology #naturalhistory #naturalhistorymuseum #miocene #pliocene #southcarolina #oceans #greatwhite #marinemammals #marinebiology #predator #giantshark #greatwhiteshark 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connorp Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 On 12/15/2018 at 3:35 PM, WhodamanHD said: Hey Guys, I have been busy lately so my participation on the forum has gone down. I hope I can get be back online more during the summer. But today, I have got a question: Where is the youngest Otodus (Carcharocles megalodon) known? A lot of places seem to say the meg went extinct in the Pleistocene but a paper I read seemed to revise this to the latest Pliocene (2.6 million years ago was their number) using some sort of mathematical sorcery. What I want to know is, where are the megs? They should be extremely rare but present in late Pliocene Marine strata. The you youngest megs I’ve seen are from the Pisco which can get to 3 million years ago. Anyone have any younger, or heard of any younger? I would assume that such formations of that exact age are rare, so it would not surprise me if there are no younger megs. I’m just curious. Could you link the paper? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted December 31, 2018 Author Share Posted December 31, 2018 43 minutes ago, connorp said: Could you link the paper? https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111086 though Dr. Boessenecker just came out with a new paper on the subject which I have yet to read “...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin Happy hunting, Mason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Pristis Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 Stuff and nonsense! . . . it was food, or the lack of it, that ended the big shark. Yes, there were seals, walrus, and whales of all sizes for a big shark to eat. But, what decimated the Western Atlantic population of megalodons was the loss of their preferred prey item--the aquatic ape. The Florida population of aquatic ape, otherwise known as the "skunk ape" (Australopithecus foetidus), was blubbery for bouyancy and to prevent hypothermia from long immersion in seawater. (The female apes had developed 'flotation' breasts for added bouyancy in supporting their less-blubbery infants.) C. megalodon hunted aquatic apes as C. carcharias hunts sea lions these days--in nearshore waters. In the Early Pliocene of Florida and the Southeast, ferocious hurricane after hurricane drove the hapless apes inland away from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The apes settled in the dry, hot interior of Florida, but they didn't prosper because away from the sea their blubber was a liability. The female's oversize breasts were uncomfortable out of the water, and they tended to get a heat rash. The apes had developed long head hair that served as an anchor point for their infants in the water. On land, this long hair became a haven for parasites ...the females lost some allure. Both male and female apes were hot and sweaty and lethargic and didn't bathe regularly, so the the birth rate fell off...they just were not reproducing. The ape population dwindled rapidly. Thus declined the population of the giant shark, C. megalodon, with the loss of its preferred prey, skunk apes. The big sharks were forced to eat whale and dugong and manatee and walrus, but what they dang-well wanted was ape. ("Once you've had Australopithecine, nothing else tastes quite-so-fine!") The megalodons persisted for a while, but there was no enthusiasm, and they died out also. Well, there it is. There is to this day only an occasional report of a skunk ape in the wilds of South Florida...typically, the report is of smelling one that has passed by recently. Even as you read this, workers are hunting pits and beaches to provide more details to flesh out this hypothesis . . . I think they're unlikely to get more than a whiff of the elusive skunk ape. 3 http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? ---Shakespeare, The Tempest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted December 31, 2018 Author Share Posted December 31, 2018 On 12/15/2018 at 6:06 PM, Brett Breakin' Rocks said: Just to add to the discussion .. I saw this post a few months ago on the Mace Brown Museum where Bobby discusses pushing that date back to 3.5 mya. They were working on a new paper that discusses it ... For some reason my notifications skipped your reply, but it seems he has moved forward with it now. I bet it will be out within the coming months. We have to see what he has to say! 1 “...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin Happy hunting, Mason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted December 31, 2018 Author Share Posted December 31, 2018 35 minutes ago, Harry Pristis said: Australopithecus foetidus The rest of the hypothesis was well thought out, but this I cannot stand for... The new features and it’s distance from any other Australopithecines must surely mean that it deserves its own genus. I propose Hydroanthropus foetidus. “...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin Happy hunting, Mason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Pristis Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? ---Shakespeare, The Tempest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 On 12/15/2018 at 12:35 PM, WhodamanHD said: Hey Guys, I have been busy lately so my participation on the forum has gone down. I hope I can get be back online more during the summer. But today, I have got a question: Where is the youngest Otodus (Carcharocles megalodon) known? A lot of places seem to say the meg went extinct in the Pleistocene but a paper I read seemed to revise this to the latest Pliocene (2.6 million years ago was their number) using some sort of mathematical sorcery. What I want to know is, where are the megs? They should be extremely rare but present in late Pliocene Marine strata. The you youngest megs I’ve seen are from the Pisco which can get to 3 million years ago. Anyone have any younger, or heard of any younger? I would assume that such formations of that exact age are rare, so it would not surprise me if there are no younger megs. I’m just curious. I once read that late Pliocene megalodon teeth could be found at an Australian site, Flinders Island, Cameron Inlet Formation (Kemp, 1991: 517). A friend once told me one was found in the late Pliocene San Diego Formation and even pinpointed the spot in a photo of a hillside. The tooth sat on the desk of paleontologist George Kanakoff for years until he retired. The tooth hasn't been seen since so evidence of the only known meg from the late Pliocene of California is gone. Kemp, N. 1991. Chondrichthyans in the Cretaceous and Tertiary of Australia. In "Vertebrate Palaeontology of Australasia". (eds P. V. Rich, J. M. Monaghan, R. F. Baird and T. H. Rich.). Pioneer Design Studio and Monash University Publications Committee: Melbourne. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MightyPretzel Posted January 17, 2019 Share Posted January 17, 2019 Megalodon teeth are present in the upper portion of the Pico Formation near the Pleistocene/Pliocene boundary (personal experience). I recently saw one from the San Diego Formation. It was in the collection of a respected amateur collector who spent decades collecting throughout Southern California. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 On 12/31/2018 at 5:23 PM, Harry Pristis said: Hmm...interesting! "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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