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Sonar image of 50-foot ‘megalodon’ momentarily shocks Rhode Island shark researchers

The researchers quickly realized the image showed a large school of mackerel, not the ancient apex predator.

An image of what appeared to be a megalodon shark appeared on the fish finder screen belonging to researchers at the Atlantic Shark Institute. Atlantic Shark Institute

By Susannah Sudborough

1 minute to read

For a brief but exciting moment, researchers at the Atlantic Shark Institute in Rhode Island thought that, perhaps, a giant shark from ancient history had returned.

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It all started during a recent shark research trip, according to a post by the institute on Facebook. The researchers took a look at their sonar fish finder and were shocked to see what appeared to be a gigantic shark.

The researchers posited that the shape might be that of the Otodus megalodon, a “macropredator” that, according to a research article in Science, lived 23 to 2.6 million years ago.

“We estimate that an adult O. megalodon could cruise at faster absolute speeds than any shark species today and fully consume prey the size of modern apex predators,” paleontologists, who created the first 3D model of the shark, wrote in the article.

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According to the article, megalodons could be up to 20 meters long and preferred large prey, which helped minimize competition.

So you might imagine that the researchers at the institute were a bit intimidated.

“Based on the length of the image we estimated the ‘Meg’ to be about 50 feet long, weighing in at 40 tons!” they wrote on Facebook.

Sadly, after a few minutes, the researchers saw the image shift and realized it was just a large school of mackerel, and not the return of one of Earth’s most fearsome predators.

One commenter on Facebook joked that the researchers had been “catfished,” a term for when a person uses a fake profile picture online, by the mackerels, who were posing as a much more impressive fish.

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