{"id":316586,"date":"2025-11-29T14:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T14:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/316586\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T14:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T14:14:10","slug":"mega-shark-remains-found-on-beach-in-australia-experts-say-it-was-absolutely-massive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/316586\/","title":{"rendered":"Mega-shark remains found on beach in Australia. Experts say it was absolutely massive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The fossils of a gigantic shark have been found on a stretch of coastline near the city of Darwin in northern Australia.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery consisted of five 115-million-year-old vertebrae belonging to an ancient lamniform shark, or mackerel shark \u2013 an order that includes modern-day species such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/fish\/great-white-shark-guide\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">great white<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/fish\/whats-the-fastest-shark-in-the-world\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mako sharks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2008\" height=\"1066\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Darwin-Formation-giant-lamniform-vertebrae.jpeg\" alt=\"Darwin Formation giant lamniform vertebrae\" class=\"wp-image-145997\"\/>115-million-year-old vertebrae from the gigantic Darwin lamniform shark. Credit: Mikael Siversson<\/p>\n<p>The vertebrae were almost identical to those of the great white shark, however, there was one big difference: the vertebrae of today\u2019s great whites measure around 8cm in diameter, while those found near Darwin were over 12cm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Given the size of the vertebrae, experts estimate the animal was around 6\u20138m long and weighed over 3 tonnes. They believe the Darwin lamniform fossils belonged to an extinct family of huge predatory sharks known as Cardabiodontidae. These giants roamed the world\u2019s oceans about 100 million years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, the most surprising thing about the Darwin specimen, say the researchers, is that it predates all previously known Cardabiodontids by 15 million years, suggesting that modern sharks had experimented with enormous body sizes\u00a0far earlier than previously thought.<\/p>\n<p>The findings of the study, coordinated by the Swedish Museum of National History, have been published in the journal\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s42003-025-08930-y#Sec10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Communications Biology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1780\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Darwin-Formation-giant-shark-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Darwin Formation giant shark\" class=\"wp-image-145998\"\/>Illustration showing a gigantic 8m-long mega-predatory shark stalking an unwary long-necked plesiosaur in the seas off Australia 115 million years ago. Credit: Polyanna von Knorring, Swedish Museum of Natural History<\/p>\n<p>Top image: 115-million-year-old seafloor deposits exposed near Darwin in northern Australia. Credit: Benjamin Kear<\/p>\n<p>More amazing stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fossils of a gigantic shark have been found on a stretch of coastline near the city of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-316586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}