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Post by Grey on Sept 22, 2019 3:02:08 GMT 5
Another interesting remark regarding bite in megatooth sharks.
It is reported on wiki and elsewhere but I could not find yet a scientific source. However it does not seem unreasonable at all for a specimen at least 4.5 m long.
Assuming a GWS 4.5-5 m long can take up 14 kg of flesh in one bite, a 18 m meg-sized jaw would be able take up about 650-900 kg of flesh.
I remember this great painting by Robert Nicholls of three megalodons, one adult male, one adult female and one juvenile feeding on drowned Anancus. Nicholls describes a "timid bite" of the female removing over 500 kg of flesh.
There was also this life size metallic jaws supervised by meg researcher Chuck Ciampaglio that had been estimated to take more than 900 kg of flesh in one maximum bite.
I doubt Livyatan, at least one the size of the holotype, would be able to remove as much as this, though I d like to see more data on this.
This is not absolutely demonstrated because there is no scientific reconstruction of the maximum size of the bite radius, but I doubt anything ever rivaled megalodon in term of the size of the raptorial apparatus.
Even the life-sized Smithsonian Museum 16 m one has a mouth that easily rivals with Livyatan jaws in overall gigantism.
Unless somehow its jaws (and body) were much smaller, I doubt any known macropredator outsizes these jaws.
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Post by Grey on Sept 22, 2019 8:19:07 GMT 5
Another point that can be confidently said; Livyatan probably was not a shark eater, probably less a megalodon eater, as shark-eating orcas show extremely worn teeth.
At least one Livyatan wasn't a whale eater in the region of Chile, if it was a shark eater (or the other Livyatan teeth specimens known from elsewhere) the teeth would show it quite easily. Though the upper teeth of the holotype are not preserved, the lower show no traces of abrasions.
This is not relevant to the theoretical fight of course and the ultimate size and power of these critters, but this strongly contradict some of the suggestions for Livyatan being a predator for megs.
I think the huge problem for Livyatan will be that, being quite possibly an oceanic animal (while was coastal but an oceanic traveler), we will have difficulties to find many of them, even if more discoveries are being made and many additional studies can be done on the holotype itself.
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Post by elosha11 on Sept 23, 2019 7:40:20 GMT 5
Grey, I like your post above. ^ I hadn't thought of that at all. But I wonder if we can so confidently extrapolate that Livytan was likely not a frequent shark eater merely because the holotype and the few other known teeth weren't worn down or show abrasions. Perhaps there were some populations and time periods where some Livyatans fed on sharks and other times/populations when they did not. Some orcas never feed on sharks, so if one only had their fossil teeth (a million years from now), such a future researcher would also not know that other populations of today's orcas frequently fed on sharks. Likely, the ocean was teaming with 4-6 meter sharks (presumably the same size as its commons cetacean prey) during the Miocene, along with the much bigger Otudus lineages. If Livyatan was agile enough to catch them, why wouldn't it do so? I'm sure Meg, and C. chubutensis would also prey on smaller sharks whenever they could. I do agree with you it's quite unlikely that Livyatan made it a frequent habit to attack Megalodon, UNLESS, perhaps, if it was a social animal and lived in pods. I don't know of a single example where a toothed cetacean preyed upon a similar-sized shark, in fact the opposite is more likely to be true. Since the current evidence suggests that Megalodon may have been larger than Livyatan, I doubt one Livyatan would seek to prey on a large Megalodon in a one on one scenario. In fact, C. chubutensis may well have overlapped in size with Livyatan quite frequently as well, although probably not at the absolute max sizes. My guess is that Megalodon and Livytan probably had infrequent combative interactions over their millions of years of co-existence. I'm sure it happened, probably many thousands of times over the course of millions of years. But I also bet plenty of Megs and Livyatans went their whole lives without ever facing each other.
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Post by Grey on Sept 23, 2019 12:14:28 GMT 5
Of course there could be Livyatan individuals/populations which were more inclined toward a shark inclined diet but so far, the holotype and the teeth found in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Australia and South Africa does not seem to indicate this, at least not regularly.
I think more and more that they did not share the same trophic position, such as Carcharodon and Pseudorca today.
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Post by elosha11 on Sept 23, 2019 19:19:26 GMT 5
^Yes that could be. I still think GWS compared to FKW is the best Meg/Livyatan analogy today, although FKW is a dolphin, not a whale.
Which Livyatan-like teeth were found in South Africa? I don't recall hearing about that one.
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Post by elosha11 on Sept 23, 2019 19:21:20 GMT 5
Also FKW live in large pods, which Livyatan (at least the males) were less likely to participate in (at least in the pod sizes of FKWs). This is probably one reason why they, along with pilot whales, are infrequently attacked by large sharks.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 23, 2019 19:35:27 GMT 5
^Yes that could be. I still think GWS compared to FKW is the best Meg/Livyatan analogy today, although FKW is a dolphin, not a whale. Which Livyatan-like teeth were found in South Africa? I don't recall hearing about that one. Don't FKW and GWS fight a lot? I thought that was established in the thread we have |
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Post by elosha11 on Sept 23, 2019 19:52:17 GMT 5
^Not at all, to the best of our knowledge. I know of 3-5 shark bite marks documented on FKW's, and no one even knows what type of shark did the biting or the circumstances. What can be cautiously hypothesized is that large sharks may opportunistically seek to prey on FKW's from time to time, but both the FKW's own formidable nature and the fact that it lives in large pods makes such incidents relatively rare.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 23, 2019 20:00:39 GMT 5
Then yes, that makes sense. Looks like a good analogy for here after all.
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Post by Grey on Sept 23, 2019 23:10:28 GMT 5
Elosha, the Livyatan sp. teeth from South Africa are from this paper : www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2019.1650273Several teeth identified as Livyatan sp. and suggesting animals similar to the holotype in scale. Personnal remark based on the size of these teeth. When I compare Livyatan with Pseudorca, it is less directly based on the infered size ratio with the macropredatory sharks than on distinctively huge teeth present both in the delphinid and the physeteroid. At first, they have a similar number of teeth (up to 44 in Pseudorca; 40 in Livyatan). For some reasons, those two have evolved an impressive dentition. At similar size, Pseudorca teeth appears to be even larger than those in Orcinus. Yet this species does not seem to be an real equivalent to transients Orcinus orca, which I tend to actually consider possibly, as pack-hunters, as the greatest marine superpredators in the history of life (yes more so than the Neogene megatooth sharks and sperm whales...).  Alternative life-history styles of cartilaginous fishes in time and space Leonard J .V. Compagno 1989 Despite large size and huge teeth, Pseudorca seems to focuse more (in absolute terms) in fishes and squids, while I would expect a more marine mammal-inclined diet with such teeth. Something more or less represented in the fossil record by a Livyatan tooth from Chile. Another good comparison can be made on their diving capabilities. Pseudorca is a deep-diving dolphin with a distinct melon. Livyatan had a melo as well, probably the second largest after Physeter. The melon is very likely to be linked to an oceanic, pelagic life and hunting style. Hence, why I presently suspect that if Livyatan preyed on cetaceans, it must have been beaked whales. Beaked whales fossils are common in the regions with Livyatan specimens and all these regions were surrounded by deeper ocean zones not far off. As for the match itself, I recall that, while not extensive, a National Geographic documentary briefly discussed the clash of the titans and suggested meg wins one on one but a pod is no match. Daniel Huber, shark specialist, guessed that on a strictly physical plan (size + weaponry) a 18 m megalodon wins. |
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Post by spartan on Sept 26, 2019 14:07:16 GMT 5
Yet this species does not seem to be an real equivalent to transients Orcinus orca, which I tend to actually consider possibly, as pack-hunters, as the greatest marine superpredators in the history of life (yes more so than the Neogene megatooth sharks and sperm whales...). Why? Because of their adaptability? |
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Post by Grey on Sept 26, 2019 15:43:32 GMT 5
To quote Duane Nash, "a cultured, highly intelligent, pack hunting, echo-locating, tool using, matrilineal, fast, strong, and persistent cosmopolitan family able to launch attacks on everything from schooling fish to herds of sperm whales and even the largest animal ever, the blue whale. Adult males are as large as T. rex and at least as intelligent as the average Wal-mart shopper."
Objectively a large pack of transient orca is maybe the most powerful predatory arsenal in history. Several dozen of tons of combined teeth, stamina and intelligence. It is hard to deal with that.
One can speculate that killer sperm whales, some kentriodontids and giant delphinids, perhaps even some marine reptiles were also sophisticated pack hunters but it is hard to verify and I doubt they were all as capable in all fields as the modern orcas, especially the transients. I suspect Orcinus orca to be a new and unique occurence with no real equivalent before.
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Post by spartan on Sept 29, 2019 3:35:32 GMT 5
Orcas aren't that great at hunting and killing adult large whales, though. They've never been observed to kill fully grown blue whales or sperm whale bulls for example. I'd imagine Megalodon or Livyatan would be much better suited for these particular tasks.
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Post by Grey on Sept 29, 2019 17:26:52 GMT 5
It is not to say orcas could certainly terminate hypothetically the Neogene giants. But the encounter would be agreable for neither parties and it all depends the size of the pods.
Bull sperm whales are not attacked because indeed of their size and power but also possibly because they are not worth the effort in terms of nutritive gain.
There are hints that killing at least adult pygmy blue whales is small feat for some transients, and not large packs at all, and that they even attack large blues just for entertainment or practice.
A large pack of hunting transients is, no matter the fanboys and exaggerations, is a combined predatory intelligent force of several dozens of tonnes. This has not to be underestimated.
At least, a large pack of transients full fill well the role of a large Carcharocles in the Neogene.
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all
Junior Member
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Post by all on Oct 2, 2019 18:49:46 GMT 5
in this particular battle i go 50/50
Megalodon has 7.1 inch teeth with very fine serration. Livyatan's teeth are not serrated but they are over 14 inches. He has very powerful temporal muscles. short robust jaws. which means great bite force. probably greater than megaladon's. but Megaladons' serrated teeth would mean that his bite force on the blade tip would make up for that.
Megalodon had good hunting strategy. he would bite off victim's fins and then move in for the kill. on the other hand Livyatan would tire his victim's out which suggests good stamina. He was also very intelligent so battle plan would not be difficult for him ether.
Some say megalodon could be up to 24 meters. some say much less than that. but latest figures put him at 18 meters and 59 metric tons. Livyatan would be 17.5 meters and 56 metric tons. About same size.
Megaladon does not need to go to the surface to take a breath. Livyatan does. But if battle was to take place in colder water Livyatan has an edge. Plus his teeth interlock meaning once he gets you he got you.
Overall I believe its about 50/50
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