Research

Megalodon

At 20 metres long; Otodus megalodon was the biggest shark that ever lived; and one of the largest extinct megafauna the oceans have ever seen. As iconic as this extinct giant is, existing for 20 million years in the Miocene and Pliocene, little is truly understood about its ecology. Even the most basic questions like its maximum size and its extinction remain debated.

My masters work on megalodon used the relationships between total length and individual body dimensions in five living shark species with similar known traits; providing the first ever estimates of how big a megalodon’s head, tail or dorsal fin may have been in a 2D reconstruction.

Subsequently, I used 3D modelling on the most complete skeletal specimen on Earth to not only make a 3D reconstruction; but to calculate body mass and assess megalodon’s movement and feeding ecology. This work indicates that megalodon was a fast-moving shark capable of travelling across oceans, and had a stomach large enough to consume a whole orca!

I am always keen to collaborate on future research of this iconic animal. If you’d like to collaborate; please get in touch!

Otodus megalodon, recreated by Oliver E Demuth for Cooper et al. 2020

Artwork by Oliver E. Demuth

Functional diversity of sharks through time

Sharks are not just apex predators; but in fact play a wide range of ecological roles across virtually all marine habitats; reflected in their different traits like body size and diet. With over 1/3 of today’s sharks threatened with extinction; their loss could therefore disrupt marine ecosystem functioning worldwide. Moreover, how do sharks’ range of ecological roles (functional diversity) today compare with their distant past? Indeed, with fossils represented mainly by isolated teeth, can we even assess functional diversity of sharks in geological time?

These are questions all addressed by my PhD research at Swansea University. Firstly, using living shark teeth, I determined that measurements from tooth morphology such as size and shape can broadly reflect a shark’s size, diet and feeding mechanism. Using those same measurements on over 9,000 teeth from museums worldwide, I then quantified shark functional diversity from 66 million years ago to the present. This work found that: (1) shark functional diversity was relatively high from 66-10 million years ago; peaking in the Miocene; and (2) has been declining for the last 10 million years, forewarning that today’s extinction threats could further erode an already depleting ecological diversity.

What does the future hold for shark functional diversity? Stay tuned…

Want to collaborate on a research project regarding functional diversity? Then please get in touch!

Functional space changes of Cenozoic sharks. Figure 1 of Cooper & Pimiento 2024.

List of publications

  • Cooper JA & Pimiento C, 2024. The rise and fall of shark functional diversity over the last 66 million years. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 33, e13881. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13881.

  • Pimiento C, Kocáková K, Mathes GH, Argyriou T, Cadena, E-A, Cooper JA, Cortes D, Field DJ, Klug C, Scheyer TM, Valenzuela-Toro AM, Buess T, Günter M, Gardiner AM, Hatt P, Holdener G, Jacober G, Kobelt S, Masseraz S, Mehli I, Reiff S, Rigendinger E, Ruckstuhl M, Schneider S, Seige C, Senn N, Staccoli V, Bauman J, Flueler L, Guevara LJ, Ickin E, Kissling KC, Liechti J, Rogenmoser J, Spitznagel D, Villafaña JA & Zanatta C, 2024. The extinct marine megafauna of the Phanerozoic. Cambridge Prisms: Extinctions, 2, e7, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1017/ext.2024.12.

  • Cooper JA, Griffin JN, Kindlimann R & Pimiento C, 2023. Are shark teeth proxies for functional traits? A framework to infer ecology from the fossil record. Journal of Fish Biology, 103, 798-814. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.15326.

  • Cooper JA, Hutchinson JR, Bernvi DC, Cliff G, Wilson RP, Dicken ML, Menzel J, Wroe S, Pirlo J & Pimiento C, 2022. The extinct shark Otodus megalodon was a transoceanic super-predator: inferences from 3D modelling. Science Advances, 8, eabm9424. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abm9424.

  • Cooper JA, Pimiento C, Ferrón HG & Benton MJ, 2020. Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction. Scientific Reports, 10, 14596. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71387-y.