Megalodon Teeth

[meg123]

I was thinking a lot about there being any possibilities that there would be a 8 inch megalodon tooth out there and i wanted to know peoples thoughts about this topic?

[tracer]

sure it's possible. i woulda posted one before now but i can't decide which one i like best and plus it would depress everyone with all those 6" and 7" teeth.

i'm from texas, and my lights are ON!

nite ya'll

[Mexx]

The maximum possible size of megalodon teeth is a topic that has always inspired the fantasy of many collectors. Also there have always been rumors about huge teeth in private collections such as a 7 5/8" tooth in an collection in England or a 7.43" Chilean tooth that a collector in germany has once shown me (without ruler on the pic). If you scroll through ebay you will find a lot of replica teeth that are even larger with 10 1/2" being the biggest I have seen. I think that shows a bit that it is more a wish than a piece of reality to ever find one measuring 8" inches. If you go by statistics and claim that the size range of megalodon teeth follows a Gaussian distribution, chances are very low to ever find one. I would dare to claim that there are probably more than million megalodon teeth in circulation. Just look at Ebay:

500 teeth a week for 52 weeks for 10 years gives a quarter million alone. And if you see how many teeth some divers bring to the surface with just a few dives, it is easy to grasp how many more there are. So if you have found 1 million teeth and the largest being like 7.3", the probability of finding one at 8" is almost zero. However, there is still the possibility of an outlier in the form of a mutated shark, that might have had some growth hormone dysregulation or one that had some kind of pathology that lead to larger teeth, or teeth with strongly elongated roots or whatever.

To sum it all up I would say, it is possible that the ever elusive 8 incher is somewhere out there, but in that case it would certainly be due to some pathologies and therefore not representative for the species.

[THobern]

I agree with Mexx. Short of a similar pathology, it's unlikely that one exists.

Edited August 17, 2010 by THobern

[Nandomas]

An American fossil friend of mine use to say: "everything is possible in this world after Al Gore got a Nobel"

After last month discovery, I thing he changed his motto in: "Everything is possible in this world after the discovery of the big killer sperm whale"

http://noticias.terra.com.br/noticias/0,,OI4593258-EI188,00-Fosseis+raros+florescem+no+deserto+peruano.html

I really think 8 inches Meg will be discovered soon :wub:

[tracer]

well, i feel like the number of meg teeth found to day is infinitesimally small compared to the number which remain out there. i can't even begin to comprehend the number of meg teeth on or below the surface of the earth. so i think it would be very surprising if there were not at least a few from individuals that had the sharky equivalent of hyperthyroidism or something and grew bigger than all the others.

i guess when someone can say that half or three-quarters of all existing meg teeth have been found, then i'd buy the concept that the maximum size of them is fairly well established.

i don't find it odd that people feel they've come to know more or less the average maximum length based on the number of teeth which have been found, but i just feel semi-certain that the vast numbers of remaining teeth out there must include ones bigger than anything found to date.

which leads to another question, which would be what percentage of all megalodon teeth on the planet do people think have been found? i would think the number's very low, much less than one percent...

[THobern]

Think how large an area of the U.S. yields megs when eroded by rivers. Think what a small fraction of that land is actually cut by rivers, but still produces teeth, then remember the vast deposits across the Americas, Africa, New Caledonia etc. Probably a fraction of a percent.

[earthdog]

If there is one, Bill Eberline (Megateeth) is going to find it !

[Mexx]

Think how large an area of the U.S. yields megs when eroded by rivers. Think what a small fraction of that land is actually cut by rivers, but still produces teeth, then remember the vast deposits across the Americas, Africa, New Caledonia etc. Probably a fraction of a percent.

That's right. A fraction of a percent is probably even too low. But the teeth that have been found are a representative sample of what is still hidden, as I cannot see any bias towards finding only teeth whose medium size is below the medium size of the whole population of teeth. Therefore my assumption that it is unlikely to find an 8 incher still holds true. It is not that only a handful of teeth have been found which would make it difficult to intfer the max size. The number of found teeth is large enough to draw solid conclusions IMO.

[siteseer]

While the percentage of teeth found out of the total ever fossilized is probably quite low, I would say that an 8-inch meg is almost certainly not going to be found. As we've seen in a similar thread, confirmed 7 1/4-inchers can be counted on one hand and claimed larger ones never seem to be available for examination. We hope to see a Sasquatch but it's probably always been a man in a costume.

I was thinking a lot about there being any possibilities that there would be a 8 inch megalodon tooth out there and i wanted to know peoples thoughts about this topic?

[THobern]

That's not to say that we've not found a considerable amount of all salvagable teeth. It's not viable to collect a lot of locations due to legislation, housing developments etc.

[tracer]

While the percentage of teeth found out of the total ever fossilized is probably quite low, I would say that an 8-inch meg is almost certainly not going to be found. As we've seen in a similar thread, confirmed 7 1/4-inchers can be counted on one hand and claimed larger ones never seem to be available for examination. We hope to see a Sasquatch but it's probably always been a man in a costume.

the sasquatch analogy is a non sequitur, but if you look up the tallest man ever and compare him to the average very tall man, (or you could do that with great white sharks), it becomes clear that you can look at literally millions of examples of "normal" sized organisms and their various parts and not ever see the one-in-a-billion or one-in-a-trillion example of what happens when growth doesn't stop and the organism lives through it. why would there never have been any megalodons over the long period of time in which they lived that suffered from abnormal growth to achieve a 10%-ish longer slant angle on an anterior tooth than the normal "biggest" fish?

[Terry Dactyll]

I agree with Tracer, statistically the 'sample' isnt big enough to make positive judgements that an 8 inch tooth could never be found when in reality less than 1 percent off the teeth have been discovered..

the fossils we find are sometimes 'sized' naturally... by say factors like the depth of water they lived in for example, where small fish would find natural protection from larger fish in the margins etc.... maybe 'Mega' Megalodon's feeding patch is yet to be uncovered by natural erosion....

[Louie]

maybe 'Mega' Megalodon's feeding patch is yet to be uncovered by natural erosion....

....or they existed and the teeth never fossilized

[THobern]

Remember though that it's a cubic increase in size, not linear. This means that a tooth measuring 8" is 1.49 times the size of a 7" tooth, and the same probably goes for the size of the shark. If shark had a pathology that only affected the size of its teeth, it may not reach maturity. My bet is that if an 8" tooth if found, it will be two fused teeth.

[tracer]

Remember though that it's a cubic increase in size, not linear. This means that a tooth measuring 8" is 1.49 times the size of a 7" tooth, and the same probably goes for the size of the shark. If shark had a pathology that only affected the size of its teeth, it may not reach maturity. My bet is that if an 8" tooth if found, it will be two fused teeth.

no, it doesn't mean that. it isn't a volumetric measurement. all ya'll micrometer folks aren't dunking in displacement flasks. one abnormally long root ear takes the prize.

and by the way, i didn't say anything about it ever being found. i said i think it probably exists. there's a big difference. if i was the biggest, baddest critter in the seas, i wouldn't hang around the shorelines, since babes to oogle hadn't been invented yet.

i crack me so up.

[THobern]

no, it doesn't mean that. it isn't a volumetric measurement. all ya'll micrometer folks aren't dunking in displacement flasks. one abnormally long root ear takes the prize.

and by the way, i didn't say anything about it ever being found. i said i think it probably exists. there's a big difference. if i was the biggest, baddest critter in the seas, i wouldn't hang around the shorelines, since babes to oogle hadn't been invented yet.

i crack me so up.

That's true, I guess. It's only a volumetric increase if the whole tooth tooth increases in size proportionally. I suppose a pathology affecting root length wouldn't necessitate a large shark or tooth.

[Mexx]

I agree with Tracer, statistically the 'sample' isnt big enough to make positive judgements that an 8 inch tooth could never be found when in reality less than 1 percent off the teeth have been discovered..

the fossils we find are sometimes 'sized' naturally... by say factors like the depth of water they lived in for example, where small fish would find natural protection from larger fish in the margins etc.... maybe 'Mega' Megalodon's feeding patch is yet to be uncovered by natural erosion....

I disagree with that. Statistics is not a question of having a sample almost as large as the whole population but a question of having a sample that is just large enough to draw solid conclusions about the population. If you randomly take 1% of the human population from different places (thats over 60 million people) and calculate their mean height, you will end up having a number that perfectly corresponds to the population mean, no matter whether you measure the "remaining" 99% of people or not. This does not only account for the statistical mean but for other statistical measures as well, such as standard deviation etc.

I think most of us can agree that when there are 8 inch teeth out there, this is most likely due to some kind of pathology wich would result in a very unusual outlier. But was THobern says is true. the jump from 7 to 8 iches goes together with an 1.5x overall increase of size for a normal tooth and to be honest, I would be much more excited to see a normal 8 incher than a pathological one...:-)

However, small chances are there, that there were geographically isolated populations of larger sharks whereof we don't have a fossil record. I wonder what a genuine 8 incher would cost then, half a million bucks?? :-)

[THobern]

I disagree with that. Statistics is not a question of having a sample almost as large as the whole population but a question of having a sample that is just large enough to draw solid conclusions about the population. If you randomly take 1% of the human population from different places (thats over 60 million people) and calculate their mean height, you will end up having a number that perfectly corresponds to the population mean, no matter whether you measure the "remaining" 99% of people or not. This does not only account for the statistical mean but for other statistical measures as well, such as standard deviation etc.

I think most of us can agree that when there are 8 inch teeth out there, this is most likely due to some kind of pathology wich would result in a very unusual outlier. But was THobern says is true. the jump from 7 to 8 iches goes together with an 1.5x overall increase of size for a normal tooth and to be honest, I would be much more excited to see a normal 8 incher than a pathological one...:-)

However, small chances are there, that there were geographically isolated populations of larger sharks whereof we don't have a fossil record. I wonder what a genuine 8 incher would cost then, half a million bucks?? :-)

Depending on the quality, it could go for as much as 50-60k I imagine, unless there was a bidding war. An 8" tooth would be an uncontrovertable record.

[Mexx]

Depending on the quality, it could go for as much as 50-60k I imagine, unless there was a bidding war. An 8" tooth would be an uncontrovertable record.

I don't think that would be enough. I would sell house and childern just to get that darn tooth!!!! :-)

[tracer]

soooo...could you elaborate on how the sample size of megs to date is adequate in number and randomness to assert based on statistics what the largest one existing anywhere on the planet should be, and what that length is?

i probably should never have mentioned statistics in the first place, since one of my favorite quotations is that "there are lies, d*mn lies, and statistics". but since there's no other way to even begin to address what is unknown and unfound out there somewhere on the planet, i simply asserted my belief that the sample size must be way too small and not nearly random enough to prove a negative, the absence of something in the world, which, let's face it, can't be done anyway. besides, i have to confess, i'm a sucker for gorgeous, perfect, wonderfully colored fossils. i don't own a micrometer.

I disagree with that. Statistics is not a question of having a sample almost as large as the whole population but a question of having a sample that is just large enough to draw solid conclusions about the population. If you randomly take 1% of the human population from different places (thats over 60 million people) and calculate their mean height, you will end up having a number that perfectly corresponds to the population mean, no matter whether you measure the "remaining" 99% of people or not. This does not only account for the statistical mean but for other statistical measures as well, such as standard deviation etc.

[THobern]

I don't think that would be enough. I would sell house and childern just to get that darn tooth!!!! :-)

A 7" tooth can go for 30,000. However, I don't think that the record tooth would go for more than twice that.

[Mexx]

soooo...could you elaborate on how the sample size of megs to date is adequate in number and randomness to assert based on statistics what the largest one existing anywhere on the planet should be, and what that length is?

For the number of teeth required to draw adequate conclusions there are statistical means like power analysis and the more. But I am not that into it. As for example in pharmacy, during clinical trials you want to be sure, a treatment has no toxic side effects. What you do? You take a sample of probands where you apply the treatment (usually in the range of 20 up to 1000 or more persons) and then generalize the data to the general population. And believe me, you want to be assured, that no one in the population dies because of the treatment. Usually 1000 are enough for to be fairly sure that no one dies. so if 1000 persons are enough to make predictions about 6 billions, I think a million shark teeth should be enough to draw decent conclusions about all of them as well.

As for the randomness. Meg teeth have been found on almost every continent. South America, North America, Europe, Africa, Australia...The have been found in different deposits, have been found on the sea floor, in deserts, river beds. Why should that not be random enough. It's not that they only come from one mine...

Finally statistics is about likelihood not known facts. Which is, it will NEVER be possible to make exact predictions on the largest tooth ever, but to narrow down possibilities du to stochasitc restraint.

I did not want to start an argument with anyone, just wanted to give my two cents and now I have to defend myself on all fronts...:-)Please be kind, I am still almost a newbie...:-)

[Auspex]

Statistical analysis can reveal probabilities; the proof is in the toof.

Get out there and find it!

[tracer]

definitely more of a debate and not an argument -

there is no analogy between testing drug toxicity and finding giant meg teeth.

i note in the wikipedia article on megalodons references to several different methods proposed by different researchers for estimating the largest size possible for those sharks. i don't necessarily buy any of the methodologies, but nonetheless, they've been postulated.

i also note references to a tooth having previously been found that was allegedly only 3/8ths of an inch shy of 8". if that was the case, then it becomes much less of a stretch, pun intended, to imagine the existence of an 8" tooth.

at any rate, i really feel like the sizable-tooth fanciers ought to go metric from here on out so that the increments of amazement and extreme "value" can be closer together and facilitate milestones being achieved.