Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An extinct genus of Pelecypoda typifying the family Megalodontidæ. It is characterized by ponderous heart-shaped shells with amphidetic area, opisthodetic ligament, and large and heavy cardinal teeth. The earliest species are Devonian, but the shells are most abundant in the Triassic rocks. Properly Megalodus.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of a group of extinct sharks from the Oligocene to Pleistocene epochs

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Discoveries here include gigantic fossilized teeth from the legendary 50-foot shark called the megalodon, the bones of a huge penguin with surprisingly colorful feathers and the fossils of the

    NYT > Home Page By SIMON ROMERO 2010

  • A nursery for the extinct giant shark known as the megalodon - the largest shark that ever lived - has been unearthed in the Isthmus of Panama.

    Livescience.com 2010

  • Only the giant shark known as megalodon could have matched the Leviathan for size when alive.

    current.com top stories 2010

  • Discoveries here include gigantic fossilized teeth from the legendary 50-foot shark called the megalodon, the bones of a huge penguin with surprisingly colorful feathers and the fossils of the

    NYT > Global Home By SIMON ROMERO 2010

  • Discoveries here [in the Ocucaje Desert of Peru] include gigantic fossilized teeth from the legendary 50-foot shark called the megalodon, the bones of a huge penguin with surprisingly colorful feathers and the fossils of the Leviathan Melvillei, a whale with teeth longer than those of the Tyrannosaurus rex, making it a contender for the largest predator ever to prowl the oceans.

    NYT > Home Page By SIMON ROMERO 2010

  • That's all pretty bad by itself, but even worse is that we hear the same old tripe about the possibility that C. megalodon is still alive somewhere in the ocean depths.

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2008

  • The megalodon was famed to reach lengths between 45 and 90 feet, dwarfing even today's most fearsome Great Whites.

    Museum Blogs 2009

  • Carcharocles megalodon with a time machine (as it lived about 50 million years after Tyrannosaurus) was apparently on the scene, and it couldn't resist such a tasty theropod.

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2008

  • A megalodon would have a killer whale for breakfast.

    With Friends Like These... Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1977

  • The extinct whale is thought to have lived between 12m and 13m years ago and was probably a top predator alongside the 20-metre-long giant shark, Carcharocles megalodon, using its huge jaws to capture and kill other marine creatures, such as smaller baleen whales.

    Fossil sperm whale with huge teeth found in Peruvian desert 2010

Comments

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  • Enormous, prehistoric shark

    February 8, 2007

  • These things are (were) awesome. When you see the pictures of a full-grown man standing completely inside the jaws of a shark, odds are you're looking at a megalodon fossil. Not even Jaws was that big.

    February 8, 2007

  • I love how the name megalodon has the right heft for the size of the shark. It's a perfect word. :)

    February 9, 2007

  • Seen here. (Those "fish" look like humpback whales to me.)

    September 16, 2008