'Biggest shark that ever lived' may have been even more terrifying than first thought

dailystar.co.uk:

shark that ever lived' — may have been even more terrifying than thought, according to new research.Many representations of the massive sea monster, which dominated the oceans until becoming extinct 3.6 million years ago, have been largely influenced by human imaginationOne of the most famous examples is the ship-dwarfing creature from 2018 sci-fi film 'The Meg' starring action man Jason Statham, which sees the Megalodon return to terrorise the modern world.But now scientists have said that there is no way at the moment to know for sure what it would have looked like — as only its teeth and jaws have ever been found.The change comes as researchers begin to doubt whether today's great white shark is an appropriate species to compare the Megalodon fossils with.Co author Jake Wood, a graduate student in the lab of Professor Kenshu Shimada, of DePaul University, Chicago, said: "It is still possible Megalodon could have resembled the modern Great White shark or lamnids."But our results suggest the two-dimensional approach does not necessarily decisively allow the body form reconstruction for Megalodon.": "Any meaningful discussion about the body form of Megalodon would require the discovery of at least one complete, or nearly complete, skeleton of the species in the fossil record."While it could be disappointing for some to find new doubt cast over the appearance of an infamous beast of the prehistoric seas, one scientist has said that the new uncertainty is in fact hugely exciting.Professor Shimada said: "The fact that we still don't know exactly how Megalodon looked keeps our imagination going."This is exactly why the science of paleontology continues to be an exciting academic field.