"Owning" Fossil Teeth

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What remains of the largest macropredatory shark to have ever lived?  We have no idea of what this animal looked like.  Experts offer differing and unconvincing opinions on how long it was and how much it weighed.  If you were godlike and could pick a single part of this fish to endure and be defined by, what would it be?  Would you pick a fin, a skull, a tail?

By all accounts this animal was an eating machine.  Some scientists believe that to survive, the megalodon had to consume over 2500 pounds of food each day; about the weight of a present day, adult, female Great White Shark.

Let's, for a moment, try to imagine the HORROR of a megalodon attack.

When we humans eat, we tend to "pull our punches". We are capable of exerting a maximum force of 150 lbs/square inch with our jaws and teeth.  We generally bite into a turkey leg with much less force, because we don't want to chip a tooth, aggravate a cavity, break a filling, hurt our gums or strain our jaw muscles.

The megalodon had no such limitations.  Some studies have indicated that an adult meg could have exerted pressures exceeding 45,000 lbs/sq. inch with its jaws.  This is 300 times as hard as a human's bite.  She had sharply pointed, serrated teeth that had no sensitive, nerve-filled central cavity.  The teeth were not anchored in jaw bone.  When she SMASHED her extended jaws into the side of a whale, she was not "worried" about losing, cracking or breaking a tooth.  Such occurrences were commonplace.  She did not "pull her punches" but put every ounce of strength she had into ripping a huge chunk of meat out of her intended meal.  Her very survival depended mainly on the ferocity of her attack and bite.

Different species of sharks use/used different method of feeding.  The megalodon was a member of the "tearing chunks of flesh out of their prey" method of feeding.

(1.) The labial recurvature (Fang) of SOME of the teeth acted like modern day saw blades that are intentionally offset left and right, one after the other, from the centerline of the saw blade.

(2.) The upper jaws of these animals were not fixed to the braincase, but were protrusible, that is, could be swung away from the "skull".

(3.) A vigorous side-to-side action of the head (done with vigorous tail lashing) combined with:

(4.) A continuous up and down biting motion, aided by a scissors type cutting action of the teeth,

would have created a kerf-type separation of flesh and enable the predator to extract a huge chunk of flesh and bone from the prey animal.  She could then retreat to a position of safety, enjoy her appetizer and watch her entrée slowly bleed to death.

What better to typify the essence of this Great Beast than its teeth?

Please keep in mind that YOU WILL NOT OWN the teeth you have chosen to keep in your house or office.  All traces of your existence will be wiped away in less than 10 thousand years.  If you think that your teeth will remain, remember that they stand little chance of being fossilized.  The megalodon teeth have survived the crucial part of their journey through space and time.  During the first 20 thousand years of their singular existence outside the mouth they were formed in, they were subjected to at least a dozen chemical and physical processes; most of them destructive.  Few teeth survived; fewer still survived intact.  The ones that did have existed for millions of years and are ON LOAN TO YOU from Mother Nature and Father Time.  Short of a direct hit by a nuclear blast they will survive you, your children and your children's children and continue to be forever a part of Time.