14 DAY TRIAL // A man in Croatia claims that, while exploring a local river in search of shells earlier this month, he discovered a fossilized tooth belonging to a Megalodon shark.
This ancient shark populated Earth's oceans around 16 million to 2.6 million years ago. It could grow to measure 18 meters (nearly 60 feet) from head to tail and it was a top predator.
In fact, paleontologists and wildlife researchers alike agree that, all things considered, Megalodon counts as one of the largest and fiercest predators ever documented.
The man, identified as Stjepan Sucec from Pokupsko Village, says he recovered the tooth from the river Kupa, close to the country's capital, Zagreb, DM reports.
The sharp chomper was identified as belonging to a Megalodon tooth by researcher Drazen Japundzic with the Natural History Museum. It is now kept in storage and might one day be put on display.
Being a shark, Megalodon's skeleton was formed of cartilage instead of bone. Hence, fossilized remains belonging to this species are not exactly easy to come by. Rather, whatever we know about the species is based mostly on teeth and a few vertebrae.
Great whites are believed to be the most like the extinct Megalodon than all other shark species that now populate Earth, specialists say. This explains why reconstructions of Megalodon are usually based on the anatomy of great white sharks.
Interestingly, there are some who think Megalodon did not go extinct millions of years ago but is instead still lurking deep in our oceans.
