would you ever venture in the ocean if he knew this creature could be lurking beneath you it's twice the size of a t-rex its jaws are big enough to crush cars and it can swallow multiple humans at a time this ancient beast is called a Megalodon shark and if it had never become extinct it would have a surprisingly large impact on our lives how would it change the way we use our oceans how big of a threat would it pose to people and what are the chances that these creatures have been hiding deep in our
oceans all this time this is what if and here's what would happen if Megalodon sharks had never become extinct over the years reports of Megalodon sightings have emerged all over the internet a lot of them claim that these giant sharks never went extinct that they've just been hiding in the deepest part of the ocean it's a Mariana Trench now you can't dive down there to check for yourself but scientists say there's more than enough evidence to debunk these online accounts if Megalodon sharks were still around we definitely know about it by now our oceans would
be a lot more dangerous here's how we know that Megalodon sharks haven't been hiding from us this whole time for starters if Megalodon sharks still roamed our oceans the last place they'd be going would be the Mariana Trench megalodons were warm water mammals so the frigid temperatures of the Mariana Trench would make it impossible for them to survive there plus if these enormous sharks still existed we'd be finding their signature giant bite marks on other large marine animals we'd also most likely have found at least one carcass or skeleton by now but that hasn't happened
the only remnants we found of these prehistoric monsters are their teeth and we found a lot of them the reason Megalodon teeth are so easy to find is because they produced a ton of them unlike humans who only produce teeth during the early stages of life sharks continue to produce new sets throughout their entire lives losing their teeth almost every two weeks their teeth would sink down to the bottom of the ocean where they would likely be fossilized most megalodons would go through about 40,000 teeth in their lifetime that's a lot of remains for us
to discover but because we've never found an intact Megalodon there's still a lot we don't know about them here's what we've been able to find out so far Megalodon sharks first showed up about 16 million years ago and they were a dominant predator in the ocean measuring anywhere between 10 to 18 meters these giant beasts preyed upon anything from fish to dolphins and even whales then about 2 million years ago they disappeared off the face of the earth and scientists aren't exactly sure why one theory is that they became extinct due to decreasing food sources
and increasing competition for that food another more intriguing theory is that megalodons simply couldn't adapt to the cooling ocean temperatures and that their prey kept moving to colder waters to escape them regardless of the reason behind their extinction you can't help but imagine how different our oceans would be today if they had survived it's estimated that a Megalodon ate about 1,100 kilograms of food each day if they were still around and eating that much then there'd barely be enough large fish left in the ocean for us and that wouldn't be the only problem for the
fishing industry we could also see megalodons tracking fishing boats and stealing the fish they catch just like some killer whales do with ocean temperatures warming up again megalodons will be thriving and reproducing resulting in even more of these giant mammals in the water that would spell trouble for maritime shipping operations cruise ships and even beachgoers megalodons gave birth in warm shallow waters so a nice recreational beach swim could become very dangerous for us what would a planet look like if no animals went extinct maybe one day we'll be able to bring old species back and
find out but that's a story for another what if [Music]
