The great white shark competed with the giant shark for prey. megalodonIt filled the oceans until 3.6 million years ago and could reach 20 meters in length. This factor may have contributed to its extinction, according to a study published by the journal Science. Nature Communication.
Analysis of zinc isotopes found in fossilized teeth opens a new window into the past for scientists and allows them to investigate their position in the diet and food chain of animals that went extinct millions of years ago.
With this new method, researchers from German and American centers, coincidence in food Between the sharks and the gigantic megalodon that lived in present-day North Carolina (USA) in the early Pliocene 5.3 to 3.6 million years ago.
So far, several factors have been proposed to explain its gigantism (diet) and extinction, in which competition for food between sharks and megalodons would be decisive.
“These results probably imply that there was at least some overlap in the prey they hunted Kenshu Shimada, a researcher at DePaul University in the United States, said in a statement that the sharks would be more efficient at catching these prey, gradually leaving the megalodon without part of its food source. study.
How can I find out the diet of an extinct species?
Analysis of stable zinc isotope levels in tooth enamel, the most mineralized part of the teeth, offers results similar to another more established technique that studies nitrogen isotopes in the collagen of the teeth. But collagen has not been preserved long enough to make it possible to analyze its content in fossils dating back millions of years.
The now-published study “shows for the first time that diet-related zinc isotope signatures are preserved in the mineralized enamel crowns of fossilized shark teeth,” says Thomas Tutken, professor at the Institute of Geosciences at the German University Johannes Gutenberg.
“Our research shows that It is possible to use zinc isotopes to investigate its diet and trophic ecology. extinct animals “It’s a method that could be applied to other fossilized animal groups millions of years ago, including our ancestors,” said Jeremy McCormack of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
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