Was Megalodon the Top of the Prehistoric Food Chain?
Research places the giant shark in a food chain that was probably longer than any in today’s ecosystems
Apex predators
Even though I mostly write about human health and disease, my biologist self can’t resist writing about (other) animals sometimes — even if the Medium algorithms don’t necessarily like those posts. Actually, one of my earliest posts on this here platform was about the giant prehistoric shark known as Megalodon.
In that post, we looked at how big Megalodon was. Did it warrant the Mega prefix? While there remain uncertainties and points of contention about its size, one thing is sure: it was a lot bigger than even the biggest contemporary great white shark. The quintessential apex predator, in other words.
What does that mean, apex predator? Quite simply, it’s the animal at the top of the food chain. Chain is a bit of a misnomer, however. Organisms in ecosystems find themselves embedded in complex food webs, not neatly linear chains. Still, even those complex webs have trophic levels.
Level 1: primary producers. Plants, algae, and microorganisms that get their food from sun, soil, and water.
