Assalamoalikum, and welcome back to life in ships and Oceans.. There's an ongoing war on this earth, it's eternal war. Whether it's among humans or other living beings, the one to survive wins. For the past 4.5 billion years on this earth, there have been countless transformations. The first, most important ones, dinosaurs. Dinosaurs roamed this earth for several years, with different types coexisting for 65 million years. What was so special about dinosaurs was their size, they were huge. But fate had other plans. Nothing stays forever, everything comes to an end. When a meteor crashed into the earth, it became devoid of life. It wasn't just dinosaurs, all life forms were eradicated. But the earth has a special quality about it; it allowed regeneration. The life forms that existed billions of years ago, can now be seen in fossilized form. We try to gather these clues and decipher them. Through different techniques, we try to find out
when exactly those life forms existed on this earth. But only around 30 percent of the earth is land. The remaining 70 percent is water. There are vast oceans and seas that ships and boats travel on. However, there are some realities on this earth that are baffling. One: Despite the advancement of technology, despite there being cutting-edge machinery, computers and all that; we still know more about the Moon and Mars than our oceans. We do know more than before, but compared to other discoveries and such, this isn't enough.
The second reality: Did you know that 90 percent of oceans are undiscovered. Did you also know that in terms of known all life forms, 80 percent of it lives underwater. Also, out of the most habitable areas on this earth 97 percent are underwater. And out of this 97 and 80 percent respectively, we only know of 10 percent. We only know about 10 percent of life forms that exist underwater. Also keep in mind that this figure is going to come in handy in this video. Up till now, considering every explored underwater region man has always come across something new. It's not just underwater, we've also found fossilized life forms on land. Fossilized life forms that have helped us gain more awareness about oceans, seas, and their ecosystems. Triangular bones have been found on ocean shores, determined to be teeth. But back when the bones were discovered, it was believed that the bones were teeth that belonged to either sea serpents, or dragons. At least that's what people used to think. It was until 1667 that a Danish naturalist Nicolas Steno, who said that the teeth did not belong to serpents or dragons, but sharks. Nicolas was the first naturalist to draw a diagram of a shark's head with its, jaw in detail. That was when people realized that sharks even bigger than regular sharks existed. In 1843, Louis Agassiz, a naturalist gave the shark its first scientific name, the Carcharodon Megalodon. Megalodon means "big teeth", the teeth were 16.8 cm big, i.e., 6.5 inches. Another thing I'd like to tell you is that whenever any life form is fossilized, apart from the life form being captured into a fossil without leakage, chances are that the parts more likely to erode due to water and salts, end up eroding. Those shark teeth were found inside creatures eaten by sharks. Whales, sharks, sea lions, basically anything those sharks tried to prey on but a couple of teeth in the process. Since these fossils weren't fully preserved because seashores were populated, there wasn't much left of the bones. Only the teeth get left behind. The next important fact is that when the structure of the shark was studied, it was discovered that most of the structure consisted of cartilage bones. Cartilages are soft bones, and they can't stay fossilized for long. So only the teeth remained, When the teeth were carbon dated, the oldest specimen to be found was 28 million years old (from today). After the carbon dating of those examples, the latest specimen was found to be around 3 million years old. Therefore, it's believed that such a shark species lived 28-3.5 million years ago. The appearance, size, shape, tooth shape of the specimen even resembles the great white shark of today. But studies today indicate, and it's even an understood fact the megalodon shark has nothing in common with the great white shark. The shape, mannerisms, etc., may have resembled great white sharks, but they're not from the same family. I only just told you that the shark's skeleton consisted mostly of cartilage. And since it couldn't be preserved, we can't really know the exact size of that species. But judging by the size of the teeth, there has been a rough estimate of its body size. Roughly, its body size must've been around 14.2-20.3 meters. That's around 47-67 feet. It's also believed that the megalodon species existed in several parts of the world, and because of that their sizes must've differed from one another. When they tried to determine via the latest models, the bite force of a megalodon's jaws whenever it bit into something, it was discovered to be around 20,000-40,000 Lbf. When you compare it to the great white shark of today, the latter's bite force was found to be 4000 Lbf. So the megalodon's power was approx. 10 times stronger. It was considered the alpha of its habitat, i.e., the king of its habitat. Similar to how the lion is the king of the jungle. An alpha predator because every other living being fears it. It preys on elephants, deer, and many other species of animals. That's why it's called an alpha predator. Similarly, the megalodon was the alpha predator of its habitat. It didn't just prey on some kinds of fish, in fact, it preyed on a wide variety of fish.
Megalodon males weighed 12-24 tone's, and the females weighed as much as 67 tone's. And despite weighing that much, it swum at 18 kilometers per hour. And swimming 18 km/h is no small feat. After the sketches and conversation they attempted the reconstruction of a megalodon's jaw in 1909.The one to attempt such a thing was Bashford Dean. But with time, it was discovered that the reconstruction wasn't accurate. The tooth arrangement was off. The quantity of the teeth was wrong. Scientists believe that megalodons don't exist anymore. Emphasis on the word "believe". They believe that megalodons don't exist anymore. There are many facts to back this belief. The earth has gone through several ages. Who here has seen "Ice Age" the movie? If you've seen it, besides the cartoons, it's quite historically correct. The ice age that came during the existence of megalodons started 35 million years ago. The earth had frozen over, the ice spreading to the oceans. The glaciers that formed, formed 5-12 million years ago. Due to glaciers forming, and pathways closing, It's believed that megalodons didn't have access to sustenance anymore. Since they were huge and ate tons of food every day, tons of fish; it's believed that whales started living close to poles, at freezing temperatures, but megalodons couldn't get there. Eventually, they began to go extinct. And since the megalodon lived in warmer waters, avoiding colder temperatures, when everything started freezing over, they went extinct. According to the latest studies, though, the megalodon was a mesothermal animal, i.e., between cold-blooded and warm-blooded. It could adjust its body temperature according to its environment. So the theory that megalodons went extinct due to cold temperatures has been debunked. But it's still believed that in the extreme cold, when other species of fish started going extinct, during the period between 35-12 million years, approx. 35 percent of marine life had gone extinct. So the megalodons may have experienced a drastic shortage of food when it went extinct around 5 million years ago. But I have different beliefs about this. If you like to watch National Geographic and are interested in nature, you must know that many of the species were thought to be extinct, that reappeared years later; let's take Coelacanths for example. The Coelacanth was a species of fish and its fossils had been discovered. It was believed that the fish went extinct 66 million years ago. But in 1938, a fisherman caught this very species in a net. The fish was not sighted for years after that, but now we know that the Coelacanth is found near South Africa. In fact, the species thrive there. A fish that was thought to be extinct for 66 million years. Another example is the Megamouth shark which was also thought to have gone extinct. But in 1976, it was rediscovered. From 1976 up till now, the shark has been sighted only about a hundred times. No more than that. For the third example, let's consider a turtle species. The Arakan Forest Turtle was rediscovered in 1908. Before that, it was thought to have gone extinct. The science expedition that went to see the turtle, just killed the turtle! It was then said that that was the last specimen to exist, with no other to exist after that. But after that, another turtle was sighted. So, only two of such a species existed. One that died, and the other that lived. The one that continues to live is also 100 years old and will probably die one day. The turtle is a female, with no male to continue the species. If you want another example, take the Bermuda Petrel. This bird was found living in the island of Bermuda. Britain attempted to populate the region and when they brought in more inhabitants, it didn't prove favorable for the petrel. After 1620, the bird was declared extinct. Megalodon Shark Tooth But in 1951, the bird was sighted again. And the species isn't only alive, they're thriving. Now, let's add in another fact. I told you in the middle of this video to keep the 90 percent figure in mind. The most habitable place for many life forms is 97 percent, underwater. 80 percent of life is found underwater. And we only know of 10 percent out of this combined area. We still don't know what exists in the remaining 90 percent.
In that case, wouldn't you think that the shark is probably still alive somewhere? If you ask me, I'd say it does probably exist. There are chances of that. And naturalists and biologists never say it has been proven that the megaladon has gone extinct. They always say that it's believed to have been extinct. There's no proof there to suggest otherwise. And there are uncountable "extinct" species that have been rediscovered.
So, what do you guys think? Do tell me your thoughts in the comments. If you aks me, I'd say it probably still exists. There are so many seas and only 10 percent have been explored our of the 90 percent. There's no harm in believing it still exists. Postive thinking never hurt anyone. If you think otherwise, do let me know in the comments. Until my next Article, take good care of yourselves.
Always remember me in your prayers.
This is me Sameer Mukhtar.
And until my next Article, ALLAH Hafiz.
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