【Walker (2025)】

Scientists have Walker (2025)named a new species of shark that likely stalked the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines some 20 million years ago.

Megalolamna paradoxodon, now extinct, had left few clues of its long-ago existence.

Researchers found just five of the species' mega-sized teeth at sites in Japan, California, Peru and North Carolina, according to a study published this week in the journal Historical Biology.

---

You May Also Like

---

---

SEE ALSO: Greenland sharks could be the world's longest-living vertebrates

The chompers measured nearly 2 inches long, suggesting the shark could have grown to be up to 12 feet long. The great white shark, by comparison, can reach lengths of up to 20 feet.

A great white shark photographed on September, 8, 2015 near Guadalupe Island, Mexico. Credit: David Fleetham / Barcroft India / Barcroft Media via Getty Images

The shark's genus name, Megalolamna, refers to its large teeth (from the Greek "megas," or great) and also hints at the teeth's resemblance to those of known sharks in the Lamnagenus, according to the study led by Kenshu Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

The species name, paradoxodon, combines the Latin word "paradoxum," or paradox, with the Greek word "odon," or teeth.

The sharks likely lived in shallow coastal waters in the mid-latitudes and feasted on prey such as medium-sized fish, researchers said.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Shimada said his research team initially thought the shark's gigantic teeth could be from the Lamnagenus, which includes the modern porbeagle and salmon sharks.

"However, the fossil teeth are too robust for Lamna-- it shows a mosaic of dental features reminiscent of the genus Otodus," Shimada told Live Science.

"So, we determined it to be a species new to science that belongs to the family Otodontidae, with no direct relationship with Lamna," he told the science news site.

• Life
• Tech
• Entertainment
• Shopping
• Deals
• Games
• Social Good
• Digital Culture

• The Story Behind the Home of Forgotten Video Games
• Spotify opens waitlist for its hardware player Car Thing
• Fictional detective Olympics: The oldest, the best, the most murdery
• Virus from a pond treats man with antibiotic
• NYT Connections hints and answers for April 25: Tips to solve 'Connections' #684.
• WhatsApp rolls out encryption for chats backed up in the cloud
• BJ Novak tweeting at Mindy Kaling is so pure you could filter water through it
• The 10 best National Geographic series on Disney+ to help you learn something new
• Galaxy S9+ vs Pixel 2 XL Camera
• Jump start your holiday list with the Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga, starting at $952

• Designing a Better Flannery O’Connor Postage Stamp
• Our Ongoing Battle with Jetlag
• The Wedding of the Painted Doll
• Cheddar, Cheever, and the Burbs
• Looking at Vermeer’s Paintings in Manhattan
• Five Photographs by Ellen Auerbach
• Courtesy Counts: A Story of Nail Clipping and the Subway
• Poem: George Bradley’s “August in the Apple Orchard”
• A Newspaper’s Front
• Staff Picks: Aira, Ruscha, Reichl

• Apple is reportedly still working on smart glasses of some kind
• Can Antoni from 'Queer Eye' actually cook? An Instagram investigation
• The first 'Black Adam' clip is a brief, brutal glimpse at Dwayne Johnson's DC debut
• Steven Crowder suspended from YouTube for hate speech. The story he was pushing is fake.
• What's Thermal Throttling and How to Prevent It
• Selena Gomez privately put Facebook execs on blast in 2020 for all the hateful content
• Fitbit Ace is a fitness tracker for kids
• Stormy Daniels dominating male trolls should be its own porn genre
• Skywatching is lit in May, says NASA
• Substack failed to register a URL. It allowed me to receive their private emails.

• Best Apple deal: Save $60 on the Apple Watch SE
• NASA and ESA tech geeks posted an 'unboxing' of the Hubble telescope's successor
• Cryptocurrency startup wants to 'pay' you to watch porn, but there's a catch
• All it takes is a styrofoam head to make a scarily accurate meme
• Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K deal: Get 40% off
• 'You' reaches twisted new heights in Season 3
• A horrifyingly massive fish washed up on a beach in Australia
• Hands have never been so interesting, thanks to the 'Subway Hands' Instagram account
• Best Amazon Fire TV Cube deal: Save $30 at Amazon
• Zoosk Labs is trying to build the HQ of dating apps