Can Megalodon sharks hunt blue whales? Why?

Megalodon once lived with the blue whale, but there is no evidence that the megalodon can hunt and kill blue whales, of course, as a baleen whale, blue whales do not have teeth that can cut, and lazy to take care of these large animals, and the blue whale's throat is only the size of soccer, too big to swallow food, so there is no intersection between the two ocean giants.

So, if you compare them, who is more powerful? Is it the megalodon with its long teeth and strong bite? Or the largest animal on earth, the blue whale? We may find the answer from the data of the two.

First of all, let's compare from the perspective of survival ability

Compared to the survival ability, the megalodon shark is inferior to the blue whale, which can be seen from the megalodon shark that has become extinct, while the blue whale is still surviving well in the ocean. So why did the megalodon become extinct while the blue whale is still alive and well?

First of all, megalodon sharks first appeared in the early Miocene about 23 million years ago, they have an average length of 17 meters and 65 tons of weight, such a large behemoth also has a length of up to 21 cm of sharp teeth, with its 15 tons of bite force, in the ocean at that time, megalodon sharks belong to the invincible existence.

The huge size of the megalodon shark must need more food to use itself port, scientists found that according to its size and the existing shark feeding comparison, an adult megalodon shark needs at least 2 tons of food a day, so much food demand, so the megalodon shark will only lock in some large marine life, which accounts for the largest proportion is the cetaceans.

Scientists believe that the megalodon can kill large cetaceans, such as humpback whales, sperm, whales, and so on, but it is because of the narrowness of food choices, let them gradually extinct, because, large cetaceans usually have bipolar migration habits, and their overall distribution is biased towards the cold and sub-cold waters.

The megalodon sharks live in tropical and subtropical waters, this distribution limits their hunting, which means that their habitat, the large cetaceans themselves are few, and then to the migration season, they will even face the situation of no food to catch, so the megalodon sharks want to survive either gradually become smaller or disappear.

And after entering the Holocene, the Earth's overall environmental temperature is also declining, especially about 3 million years ago, the Earth entered the Quaternary Ice Age, the plummeting seawater temperature also let the megalodon shark situation worsened, and finally, in about 2.6 million years ago, the once-dominant ocean completely disappeared.

However, the blue whale is different, they first appeared about 4.5 million years ago, when the megalodon shark is not extinct, and the blue whale and the megalodon shark together through the Quaternary glacial changes, but the blue whale is not eliminated, but there are two main reasons: First, although the blue whale is large, they belong to the baleen whale, mainly to plankton as food, and plankton is the basic organisms in the ocean, equivalent to the land The variable of plankton is very small, no matter how it changes.

Second, the blue whale is a mammal, it is the biggest difference with fish is that the blue whale can regulate their body temperature, so only need to pile up fat, they can swim in the cold sea with ease, unlike the megalodon shark, born in the warm period, long-term survival in the warm sea, once the environment changes, as a variable temperature fish, they are very difficult to adapt, it is like putting some tropical fish into cold water, they will soon die. They will soon die.

Therefore, simply of the ability to survive, the megalodon shark because of the size and survival environment factors, is much more vulnerable than the blue whale, and because of this, the megalodon shark is extinct.

Secondly, we will let them fight to see who is more powerful.

As we said at the beginning, there is no evidence that the blue whale was killed by the megalodon shark, but we can use some of their data to compare horizontally.

First of all, the size. Size is nothing to say, because the blue whale is by far the largest animal on earth, their maximum body length up to 33 meters, weighing up to 177 tons, while the largest megalodon shark body length of about 20 meters, weighing about 103 tons, they are not at all a level. However, based on the blue whale has no teeth, equivalent to the land elephant, while the megalodon is a predator similar to the land tiger, so it seems that they still fight.

The second is the characteristics of the megalodon shark prey. The megalodon shark is less flexible because of its large size, and in its survival years, its main prey is those large cetaceans that move more slowly. Back in August of this year, Swansea University paleontologist Miento (CatalinaPimiento) and Royal Veterinary College anatomist He Qinson (JohnHutchinson) published a research paper on the megalodon shark in Science Apex, the two scientists and their team used the latest methods to construct a new set of computer 3D models of the megalodon shark.

Through the model's measurements, the researchers found that the megalodon is likely to be the fastest cruising shark to date, with a cruising speed of 4.8 kilometers per hour, surpassing the Pacific porbeagle, the fastest shark cruising today.

Of course, cruising speed does not mean that the maximum speed must be fast, in fact, the fastest existing shark is the sharpnose mako (ShortfinMako), its fastest speed of up to 56 km per hour, we combined with the size of the megalodon, its maximum speed is certainly not sharpness mako fast, after all, the sharpnose mako only about 2 meters in length.

And the blue whale's cruising speed is about 20 kilometers per hour, in the sprint, the speed can be more than 50 kilometers per hour, which means that the megalodon is not able to catch up with the blue whale, and as a fish, its endurance is not as good as the blue whale, the most critical thing is that even if the megalodon is close to the speed of the blue whale, it does not dare to go up to bite, after all, the blue whale's huge size strength is also great, so a bite down, the blue whale Swim forward, megalodon's big teeth are broken off.

Third: analogy. Although the megalodon did not fight with the blue whale record, we can use an analogy, with the top of the food chain in the ocean today, orcas, the individual size and combat power of orcas are above the great white shark, and orcas are smart and good at team fighting. Although the megalodon is much larger than the orca, more than 10 orcas are strong enough to fight the megalodon.

However, even 10 orcas can not take a blue whale, as early as March 2021, the waters off the west coast of Australia, staged a killer whale siege blue whale "drama".

A blue whale mistakenly entered the orca's breeding grounds and was mobbed by 72 orcas. Although the blue whale was only 15 meters long (a subadult, adult blue whales are at least 18 meters long), it lasted 3 hours under the siege of 72 oceanic beasts before it was finally captured and killed.

The difference would be obvious if it was replaced by a megalodon shark. Although blue whales do not have sharp teeth, their huge bodies are enough to injure orcas just by swinging their tails, and so many orcas did not kill the blue whale by biting it, but after 3 hours of continuous pursuit, the blue whale was physically exhausted and 72 orcas took turns to lie on the blue whale, making it unable to breathe. It was the final victory.

The megalodon shark is certainly strong, but the slower speed and huge size so they can only feed on some slow-swimming large baleen whales, as for the blue whale, it does not have to think, because the blue whale is not only fast (nowhere to mouth), and bigger, stronger, so the megalodon shark can at most hurt the blue whale, want to kill is unlikely, you think?