The Meg movie franchise sees the megalodon shark portrayed as a gigantic, monstrous beast that can race through the waters towards unsuspecting victims.
But a new study shows that while megalodon was large – up to 65 feet (20 metres) long – it wasn’t exactly fast.
While previous estimates suggested that megalodon could swim at 3.1mph, researchers now believe its top speed was more like 1.2mph.
For comparison, Olympic legend Michael Phelps clocked speeds of around 6mph while in his prime.
‘Megalodon [was] an “average swimmer” with occasional bursts of faster swimming for prey capture,’ said Professor Kenshu Shimada, lead author from DePaul University.
A new study shows that while megalodon was large – up to 65 feet (20 metres) long – it wasn’t exactly fast
While previous estimates suggested that megalodon could swim at 3.1mph, researchers now believe its top speed was more like 1.2mph
The megalodon, meaning big-tooth, roamed the oceans between 15 and 3.6 million years ago and is widey considered to be one of the largest and most powerful predators in history.
Experts believe the monster looked like a stockier version of today’s much feared great white shark and weighed up to 100 tons.
In their new study, the team set out to understand the top swimming speed of the creature.
While previous studies have focused on megalodon’s teeth, the researchers instead turned to placoid scales – tiny megalodon scales found within rock pieces in Japan.
‘Our big scientific findings come from “tiny evidence” as small as grains of sand,’ said Professor Shimada.
Their analysis revealed that despite its enormous size, megalodon was not an active fast swimmer.
The placoid scales showed that the creature was not equipped with ‘keels’ – narrowly-spaced ridges that are characteristic of fast-swimming sharks.
For comparison, Olympic legend Michael Phelps (pictured) clocked speeds of around 6mph while in his prime
While previous studies have focused on megalodon’s teeth, the researchers instead turned to placoid scales – tiny megalodon scales found within rock pieces in Japan
However, this finding was surprising to the scientists, who had recently discovered that megalodon was warm-blooded.
‘The question was how the fossil shark expended the high level of metabolic heat resulting from its warm-bloodedness without being an active swimmer,’ the team explained in a statement.
The researchers turned to previous studies, and discovered another possible function for megalodon’s warm-bloodedness.
Essentially, the ancient shark was greedy, according to the experts.
‘It suddenly made perfect sense,’ said Professor Shimada.
‘Otodus megalodon must have swallowed large pieces of food, so it is quite possible that the fossil shark achieved the gigantism to invest its endothermic metabolism to promote visceral food processing.’