Le mégalodon, qui a été immortalisé en tant que requin monstrueux dans le film "En eaux troubles", était effectivement une créature redoutable des mers.
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00:00 The Megalodon, which was immortalized as a monstrous shark in the film "In our troubles",
00:04 was indeed a formidable creature of the seas.
00:07 However, a new study of its fossil remains, published on Monday,
00:12 describes it as being thinner than what had previously been painted.
00:15 Disappeared from the oceans 3.6 million years ago,
00:19 researchers estimated its size to be between 15 and 20 meters long.
00:22 An error margin explained by the small number of remaining fossils,
00:26 teeth and incomplete vertebrae assemblages.
00:29 Above all, it was assigned the same imposing profile
00:32 as that of the only large-sized shark existing today, the Great White Shark.
00:36 Failed, according to the study published in the prestigious Palaeontologia Electronica magazine,
00:41 which depicts a more elanced animal, on the model of the current Macaw shark.
00:45 "Our team has reexamined the fossil record and discovered that Megalodon
00:49 was much thinner than supposed so far,"
00:52 said biologist Philip Stern, from the University of California at Riverside, in a statement.
00:58 "It would not have been a formidable predator, at the top of the marine food chain," he added.
01:04 Based on this new analysis,
01:07 the researchers assign it a very particular behavior.
01:09 It would not have needed to hunt very often because of a very long digestive tube,
01:14 in accordance with its large size.
01:16 The latter could also have been a handicap
01:19 when more cunning but also faster predators arrived.
01:22 But Megalodon may not have been a powerful swimmer,
01:26 compared to the Great White Shark,
01:28 said a co-author of the study, Kenshu Shimada,
01:31 paleobiologist at the University of Polk in Chicago.
01:34 One of the theories explaining the extinction of Odontus Megalodon
01:37 is based on a rarefaction of its prey.
01:39 But Mr. Stern is moving forward with another scenario.
01:42 "I believe that a combination of factors led to its extinction,
01:46 but one of them could have been the emergence of the Great White Shark,
01:49 which was perhaps more agile, and therefore a better predator than Megalodon," he said.
01:54 Having an exact image of the real shape of the animal
01:57 requires putting your hand on a skeleton more complete than the rare elements available,
02:01 according to Mr. Shimada.
02:02 He added that "the fact that we do not know exactly what Odontus Megalodon looked like
02:07 leaves free rein to our imagination.
02:09 And to that of the filmmakers. "