Why Megalodon (Definitely) Went Extinct

Check out our podcast Eons: Mysteries of Deep Time: http://ow.ly/2J4450Iu69U For more than 10 million years, Megalodon was at the top of its game as the oceans’ apex predator...until 2.6 million years ago, when it went extinct. So, what happened to the largest shark in history? PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to http://to.pbs.org/DonateEons Thanks as always to Nobumichi Tamura for allowing us to use his wonderful paleoart: http://spinops.blogspot.com/ And thanks to Joschua Knüppe and Studio 252mya for the illustration of Piscobalaena. You can find more of Joschua s work here: https://www.deviantart.com/hyrotrioskjan Produced for PBS Digital Studios. Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible: Katie Fichtner, Anthony Callaghan, Neil H. Gray, Marilyn Wolmart, Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle, Gregory Donovan, Ehit Dinesh Agarwal, سلطان الخليفي, Gabriel Cortez, Marcus Lejon, Anel Salas, Robert Arévalo, Robert Hill, Kelby Reid, Todd Dittman, Betsy Radley, PS, Colin Sylvester, Philip Slingerland, John Vanek, Jose Garcia, Eric Vonk, Tony Wamsley, Henrik Peteri, Jonathan Wright, Jon Monteiro, James Bording, Brad Nicholls, Miles Chaston, Michael McClellan, Jeff Graham, Maria Humphrey, Nathan Paskett, Connor Jensen, Sapjes, Daisuke Goto, Hubert Rady, Yuntao Zhou, Gregory Kintz, Tyson Cleary, Chandler Bass, Maly Lor, Joao Ascensao, Tsee Lee, Sarah Fritts, Ruben Winter, Ron Harvey Jr, Jacob Gerke, Alex Yan If you d like to support the channel, head over to http://patreon.com/eons and pledge for some cool rewards! Want to follow Eons elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/eonsshow Twitter - https://twitter.com/eonsshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/eonsshow/ References: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Barron3/publication/222968661_Late_Neogene_changes_in_diatom_sedimentation_in_the_North_Pacific/links/5afb194a458515c00b6d64bb/Late-Neogene-changes-in-diatom-sedimentation-in-the-North-Pacific.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312500230_A_well_preserved_skeleton_of_the_fossil_shark_Cosmopolitodus_hastalis_from_the_late_Miocene_of_Peru_featuring_fish_remains_as_fossilized_stomach_contents https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0010552 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2012.01201.x https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28586693 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27381883 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4541548/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29754903 http://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/default/files/articles/pdf/g2006n2a8.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27620830 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jbi.12754 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09067 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018216305417 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111086 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5968/993 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0084857 https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2813 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233681377_New_fossil_teeth_of_the_White_Shark_Carcharodon_carcharias_from_the_Early_Pliocene_of_Spain_Implication_for_its_paleoecology_in_the_Mediterranean http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UFE0042397/00001