Hi All!! I would like your thoughts to see if anyone has a view on what this animal is this article is describing. This article was posted from “The Pathfinder” in Washington, D.C., in 1913, entitled “Strange Creature Captured in the Sea.” “From Florida comes the prize fish story of the Season. Capt. C.H. Thompson, a mariner of Miami, in company with two other men, was cruising off the coast when they encountered a sea monster whose like men had never before seen. They gave chase and the fight that ensued was one to gratify the most adventurous. Before the creature was subdued five harpoons and 151 bullets were lodged in its body and after that its life lingered for five days. In the struggle it smashed a boat into 1000 pieces and knocked the rudder off a 31 ton yacht. With a harpoon line connecting it to their boat it towed the men for 39 hours at the rate of 45 miles per hour. Most of the inhabitants of Miami were on hand when the victors brought their prize to the shore. Usually fishermen have to explain that their big fish got away, but these men delivered the goods. Officials of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington were unable to classify it. Its weight was found to be 30,000 lbs;, and it measured 45 feet in length by nearly 24 feet in circumference; its mouth was 38 inches wide and 45 inches deep and its tongue was 40 inches long. Teeth to the number of several thousands and were set into its huge jaws. When cut open an animal weighing 1,500 lbs. was found in is stomach. Its hide which was three inches thick, without scales, resembled that of an elephant.”

Oh, and while we're on the subject, does anyone have a thought on what specific kind of fish lives in the Mediterranian Sea that would be large enough to swallow a man whole? (I'm thinking specifically of the Jonah story in the bible.) What are your thoughts on these sea creatures?

How about this as a possibility. Sounds feasable to me.

http://www.papajoesmarina.com/7_fishing_history/hist1.htm

If you reay want to see something strange and almost unbelieveable, search for the fish coelacanth. There's some pretty interesting stuff to be found.

What a fascinating account, I've not seen that one before. I'm afraid I have absolutely no answers for you.

Obviously the beast sounds like a whale, but surely that would have recognised by Captain Thompson as such. Also, the Smithsonian was involved, so presumably the story is not entirely fiction (vastly exaggerated?). I think it might be worth transcribing your post onto the Fortean Times website and seeing if any of the cryptozoology experts have any opinions. In addition, you might want to track down some of the books of the late Bernard Heuvelmanns as he used to document these sort of reports.

And I thought the giant Jurassic fish Leedsichthys was extinct!

Very interesting, and thanks for sharing it.

How about this as a possibility. Sounds feasable to me.


Good bet. I like the 39-hour battle growing into 5 days. :roll: Only thing that doesn't match is the 1500lb 'creature' in its stomach - that's some pretty big plankton. :wink:

What are the odds 2 guys named thompson caught 15 ton fish in Miami the same year? Castor you got it.

You might want to ask the folks at www.cryptozoology.com. Theyr'e really good. I'm also a seasoned memebr of hte forums there. I can't tell you off hand though, do you have a source??

Graeme

The only source I have is that I am a bible student who was looking at the Jonah account and I looked under the notes of a brother John Meggison where he had this account listed. I don't know where he got that news article. This is also why I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to what kind of fish lives in the Mediterranian which would be large enough to swallow a man whole (scripture doesn't say it was a whale, it says "big fish.")

Not to be offensive or anything, but I seriously do not think that a human can survive in a fish stomach (whale or whale shark) for anything more than 1 hour, true, a sperm whale has the throat as thick as a manhole cover, but either God made poeple resistance to somtach acids, I don't think it's possible.

Man catching whale shark, yes. Man living in large fish (or whale) = Almost Impossible.

What about breathing? Three days is an awfully long time to hold one's breath.

I know, many do not believe and that's fine. I do, so just say, for the sake of argument, that it is possible -- what do you think the most likely kind of fish would be to accomplish this, maybe a large sturgeon? I know that in the great lakes there have been reports of giant sturgeons bothering swimmers from time to time (in Lake Huron.)

But what about Mr Gepetto!? He lived in a whale's stomach, boat and everything! but that's another story. As for this one... I don't know, again, without a reference to the source... Could it have been an Oarfish, off the top of my head? They pretty big, and I think were tha basis for sea-serpent tales. Failing that I dunno, unless there really IS a "trunko" :lol:

Graeme

It was my understanding that this is precisely what made it a miracle.

Forgive my ignorance -- what is an oarfish? I have not heard of this.

What if Jonah was a really tiny little guy?

:lol:

I was just looking at this link http://www.papajoesmarina.com/7_fishing_history/hist1.htm and I'm guessing this Capt. Thompson may be the same guy in both accounts. If so, he must have had some bait to have such success with the big fish. I've also submitted my question to cryptozoology.com and as of yet I haven't heard from them. Will keep you posted!! :smile:

Sturgeon get big, yes, but I don't think ever that big. Also, sturgeon are bottom feeders, so they have more of a "sucker" type mouth at the bottom of the head. Not sure if it would ever be large enough for a person, but even if it were it would be a very awkward operation to get a man inside one of these fish. Can't remember that story in detail, did it mention being consumed into the sea? Or did it mention some form of fresh water environment? That would make a big difference too when thinking of potential fish species.

Regarding the Smithsonian episode, perhaps a megalodon? They're big, lots of teeth, predatory. Didn't check the size reported with estimates for megalodon, but I know that they were big, twice as long as the largest great whites. That'd make them around 50 feet, which fits the story. Being a shark, one wouldn't have to surface for air. Sharks don't have scales, per say, and have relatively tough skin. I vote Carcharodon megalodon !!!! :grin:

It couldn't be a whale shark as they don't have teeth and eat plankton, and the Smithsonian should be able to recognize one of them. Also, one should consider that though "When cut open an animal weighing 1,500 lbs. was found in is stomach." could also mean that it was carrying offspring. Great white sharks (related to megalodons) are viviparous, they give birth to 2-6 fully formed pups which can be up to 1.5m long. So...maybe there are still megalodons roaming the oceans...schweet...

Cheers!

I was looking closer at the story of Jonah itself in the bible, and when the big fish swallowed him, he was en route from Joppa (modern day Tel-Aviv) to Tarshish (somewhere near Spain) which would have put him in the Mediterranean Sea. The scripture says that God had appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights before it vomited him up on dry land. (The fact that "God appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah is among the reasons I feel it was a miracle that he did survive that long.)

I love the idea of the megalodon as a possible explanation for the other article. I am surprised though that the Smithsonian wasn't aware of this animal's identity, particularly if it was a megalodon. I'm glad I posted this thread! Lots of good input here! :smile:

Hi again -- do y'all think that Megalodons live or could live in the Mediterranian Sea?

Oohhhh...now you've done it. Opened up the can of Megalodon/Carcharodon worms ! I'm one of those rebels who thinks that they are the same fish, so in answer to your question, I'd say yes, they do occupy that area.
If you were going to talk to a Meg believer, he would probably say "maybe", since the fossilic evidence is scattered all over the map.

Theological implications in this case are interesting, though you are going to find a lot of naysayers here, since for the most part, they are of scientific bend. Of course, I worship a giant space octopus, so what do I know...

greg

Hi again -- do y'all think that Megalodons live or could live in the Mediterranian Sea?

Well, if a Megalodon wants to live in the Mediterranian, I'm certainly not going to try and stop it! (Substitute 1500lb shark into your favorite 900lb gorilla joke)

I'm inclined to believe that if such a large animal was inhabiting the oceans, that we would have noticed it by now. I know that there are countless millions of new species to be discovered (including a rat/squirrel just found in Laos thought extinct for the past 11 million years!) but I doubt that too many of them are 50 ft long top predators. Having said that I think it would be freakin' sweet if someone found one, but I doubt it. Just too many scientific improbabilities.

Cheers!

Remember, the article was from 1913. They could have died out by now... or not... :hmm:

Actually, since the Mackerel sharks sink when dead, there would very, very few sightings...if any at all.

Maybe it was the infamous leopard shark.

Hmm. Don't think you could have seen the thread regarding leopard sharks...that was in supporters ! LOL.
In my defense, it was dark, the sharks were lit, and she was hot.

Anywho, I'm still a fan of the Megalodon/Carcharodon thing. Hey, what a great painting ! Off to work...

greg I am quasi omniscient.

Ah! Raining on parades! My favorite pasttime! :twisted:

Greg: Charcharodon and Megalodon teeth don't match, they're very dissimilar in their profile, serration and thickness to height ratio: not the same species, for sure, no further cladistics necessary... They might still be out there, though :goofysca:

Bob, go google... "define: allegory"

Not intending to start an off topic discussion here, everyone's entitled to their own opinion :grin:

ob finally got a chance to play around with some of the recording software and it beats the hell out of the roland 16 track we used for our demo.

now megalodon might have much larger than thought, all we have to go on is jaws and teeth, so if meg had an eel like body plan it could have gone 100 feet. I want my scary monsters big damnit (where is gojiro when you need him).

We only have teeth, that's the scary bit :shock:

No worries, the teeth only compliment the vast arsenal we have at our disposal. Could you imagine what we would be capable of with far deadlier weapons? I shudder at the thought.

Not intending to start an off topic discussion here, everyone's entitled to their own opinion :grin:

And as long as it's mine, they're even entitled to display it in public. :yinyang:

wow! I sure have opened a can of worms here! Regardless, it's a great discussion!! Thanks for all the input! :smile:

Just so I'm clear, is the consensus that the fish in the news article the same kind of fish which can live in the Mediterranian and would be a likely canditate for the fish in the story of Jonah?

I know that there are countless millions of new species to be discovered (including a rat/squirrel just found in Laos thought extinct for the past 11 million years!) but I doubt that too many of them are 50 ft long top predators

You should consider all possibilities before making such definitive statements: all eels have a larval stage known as a leptocephalus. Even in species such as moray eels, some of which grow to 3 m in length, the leptocephalus rarely exceeds 20 cm in length. In museum collections worldwide, there are leptocephalus specimens (L. giganteus which cannot be associated with any known adult species of eel. This leptocephalus grows to 180cm - assume that all eel leptocephali, including L. giganteus, would have similar ratios of larval:adult size, and suddenly, the 'sea serpent' mystery is no longer a mystery. Dang.

Hello Cindy,

Getting back to your original post, a few thoughts, predicated on the assumption that the article is even half accurate about the dimensions and behavior of the animal involved:

It sure sounds like a whale. It was a commonplace back then to refer to any aquatic animal with fins as a fish. If any Smiithsonian scholars observed the carcass, they may have done so long after the capture, when decomposition and meat-cutting would have skeletonized the whale. Even Smithsonian scholars can be misled by partial remains. A sperm whale would be hard to miss, but a baleen whale that was unfamilar to them could have stumped them. Baleen whales may also occasionally ingest large fish at the surface as they strain for plankton, so it's possible there was a semi-digested "creature" in the thing's gut.

Of course, the whole story could be crap.

If the tale of Jonah had any basis in reality, it's almost a sure bet that it was inspired by a large shark, the great white being the obvious and most likely suspect. Very large ones have been captured in the Mediterranean, and they're quite capable of swallowing a man whole. (Especially if the man is short-statured and very, very dead).

There's an outside chance that prehistoric humans dwelling along the right coasts might have seen a Megalodon, or seen a Megalodon inhale some poor fellow paddling on his raft. It would, of course, require a miraculous set of circumstances for that poor fellow to escape with his life, and he'd probably suffer from severe psychiatric disturbances for the rest of his life.

I should also say that good stories often jump barriers of language and culture, so the Jonah myth may not necessarily have originated in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, similar myths often develop independently; deluge or flood myths occur outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition, because catastrophic flash-floods aren't relegated to the Holy Land.

Cheers,
Clem

When cut open an animal weighing 1,500 lbs. was found in is stomach. Its hide which was three inches thick, without scales, resembled that of an elephant.”



At that size it's only a quarter of a London bus bigger than a Stella's sea cow - and it could have been pregnant.

Having studied sharks for a very, very long time, I can assure you that the teeth do differ from subadults to adults...hence the variences between megs and whites...but, you obviously fall into the spectrum of the normal fish people.

Here's my :twocents:...

Great white or Megalodon could be possible. Great whites are thought to get 25 feet long (some dispute this figure). Back then Great Whites could have been larger before humans totally fished the ocean of many inhabitants. As for the item in it's stomach, my thought is Southern Elephant Seal - their range now (though rare) is as far north as the equator on the Atlantic side of S. America. They are definitely big enough (males are about 5000 pounds and females 1500 pounds). They are also eaten by great white sharks...

I say its a giant grouper :grin:

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we can safely assume the whale shark story to be correct, the animal in the picture on top of the wagon most positively is Rhincodon typus. The fact that this species of shark also has the aforementioned array of thousands of teeth at its disposal, further strengthens the argument. I'm also tempted to believe this particular specimen might have inadvertantly scooped up a dead manatee, provided its gullet would be large enough.

I'm with clem on the Jonah myth.

Having studied sharks for a very, very long time, I can assure you that the teeth do differ from subadults to adults...hence the variences between megs and whites...but, you obviously fall into the spectrum of the normal fish people.

Greg, would you concur that great whites, giving birth to young, and therefore sexually mature, can not be classified as sub-adults?

I prefer my megs as mysterious creatures of the deep, anyway :grin:

Well, as for Jonah, the fish could not be a Whale shark as these do not range into the Mediterranean. Even if a single lost specimen wandered in to the Med, the chances of it seizing a man, swallowing and him surviving, are quite frankly, zero. However, if one is looking for a large fish in the Sea, then the filter-feeding Basking shark (http://195.12.2.23/basking/base.htm), the world’s second largest fish, is most likely to be the culprit as the Med is within its known distribution range.

There is no convincing evidence that Megalodon survived past just over 1 million years ago. If it had I’m sure that some-one would have found evidence for it, especially as it was not believed to have been a deep sea shark and lived in coastal waters.

I’m with Clem and Ob here, the whole story is surely a myth. Like many Old Testament stories, it is a parable or tale and cannot be taken literally. Unless, just possibly, Jonah was out for a swim one day, bumped into a Basking shark and swum for shore in a panic. He could have gasped out a story about a huge fish with a mouth large enough to swallow him whole, or may have claimed that he had been swallowed. Either way, Chinese Whispers then took over, and his story became increasingly elaborated as it was passed around.

That’s the trick with oral tradition, each tale teller likes to embellish stories with their own slant…just look at the multitude of the stories about King Arthur and that tale’s origins are just 1500 years old, let alone the 8th century BC as with Jonah!

Now Phil, you are going to seriously tell me that you don't believe in King Arthur ? Heresy !

Yeah, the whale shark's throat is too narrow for a human, though a basking shark's isn't. And yes, the story is just a parable, but a fun one to look at, no?

As far as Megs go, what little proof exists of them is largely circumstantial, and having little to go on, it is hard to classify them at all, especially as far as habits/habitat go. I was talking to another sharkophile last night, and he had a good theory about great whites getting larger to fill the niche left by the over-whaling practice of humans. Hey, something has to eat all of those squid !

Phil, are you telling me that these (http://www.timesscientific.net/megalodon_teeth_001.htm) are 1 million years or older? Enamel is hardy, but is it this tough?

Perhaps attention could be turned to the more elaborate sea dwellers, i.e., deep sea anglers. If one of these seldom seen fish were to migrate to the surface, perhaps over a period of weeks, one could very well fit into the speculative areas. Assuming we are speculating here.

Phil, are you telling me that these (http://www.timesscientific.net/megalodon_teeth_001.htm) are 1 million years or older? Enamel is hardy, but is it this tough?

Stunning aren't they? It may be hard to believe but I don't see any reason why they should not be over a million years old as sharks teeth preserve incredibly well. I've found a couple of tiddlers that are 40m Eocene in date and you could still score your finger with them!

The point is, if Megalodon is still out there there would need to be a sizeable breeding population. Each of these sharks would shed teeth at a rate of hundreds a year, this would amount to literally millions of potential fossils since the animals are believed to have become extinct. Yet no-one has found any, and this was from an animal that probably lived in coastal waters.

Sorry chaps, the animal has gone. Perhaps just for once that's not such a terrible tragedy. :hmm:

Anyway, back to Jonah.

So let me get this straight, the consensus is that Megalodon may have been the creature that got Jonah (assuming the story is true) and yet it may not have been the creature in the news article from 1913? Am I following this correctly?

Short version: No and yes respectively. Megalodon with almost complete certainty went extinct at least 850000 years before the dawn of Homo sapiens, so it could never have swallowed anyone we know in myth nor reality. The creature in the 1913 article has been positively identified as a whale shark early on in this thread (remember the specimen on the cart with its mouth agape).

Always up for rekindling the Megalodon extinction event discussions, though :grin:

I haven't heard many giant shark stories but when I lived near Sebastian inlet the old timers used to tell stories about giant stingrays and octos out in the blue holes

out in the blue holes?? Do tell...

Ah, good old Lusca!

I'm still interested in what the consensus is about what sea creature lives in the Mediterranian which would be able to swallow a man whole. I've heard everything from grouper to Megalodon to Great White shark. Can we narrow it down a bit?

Blue holes are coral caves found in the bahamas

I should know that... it was brought out in the Imax 3-D movie... :oops:

Can we narrow it down a bit?

Absolutely with ob on this one. Via the vast power of Google (including the authoritative Mediterranean Shark Site (http://www.zoo.co.uk/~z9015043/)), one may conclude that the largest observed cetaceans and sharks in the Med include:

Cuvier's beaked whale
Sperm Whale
Fin Whale
Great White Shark
Basking Shark
Smooth Hammerhead
Bluntnose Sixgill Shark (deep water)
White Shark

Of these the Fin and Sperm whales and Basking shark are the largest.

Megalodon is out, as it was long extinct by the Neolithic, the 8th century BC when Jonah is supposed to have existed. If one wants to include that as a serious possibility, one might as well accept a plesiosaur or the Loch Ness Monster as being responsible.

The Whale shark is also out as they do not exist in the Med.

If one wants to take an endlessly translated story from the New Stone Age at face value then the above are the most likely contenders to be the origin of the story. However, obviously no-one is capable of surviving for days in the stomach of one of these animals. The entire story is probably a corruption of a tale told narrating an encounter with such an animal that has been transmitted for generations via oral translation, been exaggerated and embellished before being set to parchment and ultimately interpreted by some as scripture.:wink:

The entire Jonah story is, I'm sure, an allegory, but if forced to place money, it'd be a chance encounter with a basking shark, very large and with a huge mouth.

Wonderful!! Like I've said before, I understand many don't believe and that's cool too. Whatever rocks your world. I do and I have my reasons why. Just so I'm sure we're on the same page, would a basking shark live down near the bottom of the sea?

Oh, and by the way, I've really appreciated all the comments! :smile:

Just so I'm sure we're on the same page, would a basking shark live down near the bottom of the sea?
Hello Cindy,

No, basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) are filter-feeders, like the baleen whales; they strain water through their gills, ingesting planktonic organisms, krill and small fish near the surface of the ocean. (Hence their name, as they appear to be basking in the sun for recreation when they're actually feeding.) They are most definitely not man-eaters.

Cheers,
Clem

Wonderful!! Like I've said before, I understand many don't believe and that's cool too. Whatever rocks your world. I do and I have my reasons why. Just so I'm sure we're on the same page, would a basking shark live down near the bottom of the sea?

Oh, and by the way, I've really appreciated all the comments! :smile:

One reason I have no clue how to respond to this is that in looking at what's known to science to try to explain what is essentially a miraculous event in the Bible, one has to decide what parts of traditional science to disregard. Since you are willing to believe in the literal fact that Jonah was eaten by a large fish in the mediterranian, and that God miraculously allowed him to live for days, why wouldn't one believe that God created a special, customized fish as well. At least some Biblical literalists (I have not figured out whether you fall in this category or not) do not believe the Earth is old enough for any of this discussion about extinct fishes to be meaningful-- if the Earth is 6000 years old, then talking about conclusions we've reached about sharks that we believe were extinct a million years ago is a contadiction. Unless you somehow specify where you draw the line between science and faith, asking for some sort of scientific guess as to what might be referred to in this story seems to me to be an ill-posed question. From my understanding of science, which is of course not perfect, the some of the fish and whales listed might swallow a man, although many of them would be likely to chew them to death first, but none would allow him to live for days afterwards. If you are willing to accept supernatural explanations to get around this issue, then why limit yourself to the known natural possibilities for what species of fish it could be?

I don't think anyone is meaning to object to your faith, I think it's not obvious how to reconcile the parts of your faith that don't seem consistent with science in such a way that science can answer your question. Science pretty much says that there is no fish that can fit the bill... if you want the "closest fit," and assume that a miracle accounts for the difference, there's still a lot of room for argument as to what the "closest fit" would be, because once you accept that miracles are occurring, it's hard to decide whether it is a more likely miracle for it to have been a big whale, a big shark, a big clownfish, or a big river catfish that miraculously swam out of the amazon into salt water and made its way to the Mediterranean.

Just my :twocents: -- I just haven't seen a coherent question so I'm not surprised that there's not much agreement on the answer.

For those with an interest to study the book of Jonah, I would also advise looking up the the Myth of Heracles rescuing Hesione. Please find this handy introduction mostly taken from the Rutgers (www.scils.rutgers.edu) site (edited for errors):

"Heracles's rescue of Hesione, paralleled by Perseus's rescue of Andromeda, is clearly derived from an icon common in Syria and Asia Minor: Marduk's conquest of the Sea-monster Tiamat, an emanation of the goddess Ishtar, whose power he annulled by chaining her to a rock. Marduk is swallowed by Tiamat, and disappears for three days before fighting his way out. So also, according to a Hebrew moral tale apparently based on the same icon, Jonah spent three days in the Whale's belly; and so Marduk's representative, the King of Babylon, spent a period in demise every year, during which he was supposedly fighting Tiamat. Marduk's or Perseus's white solar horse here becomes the reward for Hesione's rescue. Heracles's loss of hair emphasizes his solar character: a shearing of the sacred king's locks when the year came to an end, typified the reduction of his magical strength, as in the story of Samson. When he had no more hair than an infant."

This (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_n3_v44/ai_17422984) might also be helpful, Cindy.

Have fun,

Olaf

About Megs... were they not supposed to be coastal? Sorry, but a huge coastal shark would be quite easy to spot. I don't think Megalodon exsit anymore. That's not to say there isn't a possibility they became deep-sea animals, but I'm not so sure about such a large vertebrate surviving all its life down there. Most resident vertebrates in the deep sea are quite small, and animals like sperm whales only visit such depths. Obviously the calcium-retaining problem would affect a shark, since it's got no calcified structure, but I'm not so sure about their buoyancy mechanism. It's Urea they use isn't it?

Graeme- fighting a war with his keyboard again!

To say that a meg was "coastal" is like saying Dilophosaurs spit venom...pure conjecture. In my opinion, the subspecies megalodon is nothing more than a large carcharodon. To be sure, there probably aren't any swimming in the ocean right now, but with the disruption of the large predators, perhaps some white sharks will attain the larger sizes of the past.

I would have thought from the surrounding rock fossil you'd get an idea on the region on where the animal lived. Sure it could have drifted ashore, but isn't that how you get an idea of the animal's distribution? I would have thought there'd be more evidence in where a meg lived as than if dinos spat venom (since venom glands would eb soft tissue and long gone). I could be mistaken though, I'm not much of a palaeontologist, I'm afraid.

Graeme

Well, the bulk of the teeth have been found in the shallow sea beds (now up and dry, of course), but there could be just as many out in the deep...spotting a shark tooth at 150' would be tough! Just like carcharodon's, they swam in the shallows, and in the pelagy...

Aye. Right enough. That's the thing about prehistoic beasties. We don't know much more about them than their remains. How great would it be to be able to look back in time and see the fossils actually alive!?

Graeme

You and all of us both, Graeme...

hey graeme, what about the six gilled sharks don't they get 20' + and live in deep water.

That's a really good question about the six-gill shark. Do they live in the Mediterranian?

From the Florida Museum of Natural History http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/BigeyeSGill/BigeyeSgill.html
Geographical Distribution
The bigeye sixgill shark is probably distributed worldwide in deep water. However it has been reported in the western Atlantic Ocean from Mexico to the Bahamas, northern Cuba, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. In the eastern Atlantic, this shark is found from France south to Morocco, including the Mediterranean Sea. It may also reside off the coasts of Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria. In the Indian Ocean, this shark lives off the eastern and southern coasts of the African continent and Aldabra Island (India). The distribution in the western Pacific Ocean includes Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, New Caledonia, and Australia.


Not sure if this is the six gill you were thinking of, but it is a six gill...

Quick question from an amateur (or less...), how is it that anyone can assume anything about this "megalodon," when all anyone seems to have on it are teeth (which looks like any ol' shark teeth, just big) and some pieces of vertebra?

It's along the same lines as making an ape-man from a lower jaw bone and a piece of skull... which seems to happen alot. Why not just say it may be the remains of a Great White that lived a long time ago and got really, really BIG.

Again... I'm just someone who happened to read all the posts and became a bit curious. Thanks!

Science is not out there to make things up - it is there to find the truth regardless of any preconceived ideas.
In the case of megalodon, the teeth would have been examined by many shark experts, and their consensus found that this would have been another species. I would imagine that the big Great White idea would have been proposed - and shot down, presumably due to difference in tooth structure ect. Otherwise, they would have called it a big Great White shark :grin:

The jaw bone thing is the same way a bone expert can determine someones age/height ect from just a single bone.
In the jaw bone case he would first have to prove that the measurements of the bone showed it was not just an ape for example.

In the human evolutionary pathway, more and more bones are being found every year, gradually building on what has already been found.

Many fundamentalists are not up to date with the very large array of new fossils ect, and often try to make it appear that the whole evolution theory is based on a few peices of bone that dont resemble much. Since the jaw bone (1994? or thereabouts?), there's a lot more puzzle peices that have been filled in - and therefor not as much "faith" in the scientific method is required.

That's a really good question about the six-gill shark. Do they live in the Mediterranian?

Absolutely! This be the beastie you are looking for:

Click here (http://www.aasharks.com/types-of-sharks/bluntnose-sixgill-shark.htm) and here (http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=88) for information on the bluntnose six-gill shark.

Also, here is an absolutely excellent paper discussing the ecology of Megalodon and debunking claims that it could potentially still exist:

A Critical Evaluation of the Supposed Contemporary Existence of Carcharodon megalodon (http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bz050/megalodon.html)

This might have already been mentioned here, but Cousteau's theory regarding the fish that reputedly ate Jonah was the Grouper. One of the episodes of his old show was even, I believe, called "The Fish that Swallowed Jonah". I've also read accounts of Gulf of Mexico hardhat divers having rather interesting encounters along the oil platform pilings with these rather weighty, highly territorial fish. Of course, these fish stories sounded like they were transcribed from interviews held at watering holes somewhat late in the evening, so I'm sure there's plenty of room for gross exageration...

Henceforth jewfish? :grin:

Henceforth jewfish? :grin:

I'm WAYYYY too LA to use that old term. Don't think it would make me very popular.:shock:

I guess it doesn't make me very popular, either, then; no offense intended :oops:

I guess it doesn't make me very popular, either, then; no offense intended :oops:

None taken. Some friends of mine (among them the author/artist of "Who Will Be Eaten First?") were recently chuckling about the term (they're Jewish) and I had to explain that the mighty grouper is an awesome predator. They were under the impression that it was considerably lower in the foodchain than that and were laughing about the anti-semitism of naming a presumed bottom-feeder after the Hebrews. The next comment was something along the lines of renaming it the Moshe Dayan-fish, to which I responded that they generally have two eyes. The conversation kept devolving from that point.

Damn those office hanukkah booze-ups :grin:

Oops.

I haven't figured out how to quote something in my reply.

Well, if it helps, you need to write [ QUOTE] before the section you are referring to, then [ /QUOTE] afterwards. Don't put the space in I have placed after the bracket though, I've only done that here or these instructions would come out as quotes themselves!

Advanced class: to quote a named invidual you need to write something along the lines of [ QUOTE=George W Bush], then [ /QUOTE] afterwards.

You can always try editing any post you have already made to fix it.

Cheers!

Well, while the scientists scoff at the existance of large carcharodons, their only proof is "well, we haven't dissected one yet.", hardly sufficient to sway me, I'm afraid...this same mind set declared the coelecanth extinct, the idea that an anaconda could swallow a person insane.

They also seem to not believe in King Arthur, which horrifies me.

They also seem to not believe in King Arthur, which horrifies me.

Ni!

Watch it guys, I'm from herring country! Bring me your biggest tree!!!

Grouper can get really large, but they'd have to be in the order of tens of feet, not 8, to qualify as sufficiently large to swallow a man whole, including enough air to allow for three days worth of respiration. You'd be hard pressed to find a grouper of appropriate size, especially in the mediterranean...

PS: Pressing the "quote" button also helps :grin:

One reason I have no clue how to respond to this is that in looking at what's known to science to try to explain what is essentially a miraculous event in the Bible, one has to decide what parts of traditional science to disregard. Since you are willing to believe in the literal fact that Jonah was eaten by a large fish in the mediterranian, and that God miraculously allowed him to live for days, why wouldn't one believe that God created a special, customized fish as well. At least some Biblical literalists (I have not figured out whether you fall in this category or not) do not believe the Earth is old enough for any of this discussion about extinct fishes to be meaningful-- if the Earth is 6000 years old, then talking about conclusions we've reached about sharks that we believe were extinct a million years ago is a contadiction. Unless you somehow specify where you draw the line between science and faith, asking for some sort of scientific guess as to what might be referred to in this story seems to me to be an ill-posed question. From my understanding of science, which is of course not perfect, the some of the fish and whales listed might swallow a man, although many of them would be likely to chew them to death first, but none would allow him to live for days afterwards. If you are willing to accept supernatural explanations to get around this issue, then why limit yourself to the known natural possibilities for what species of fish it could be?

I don't think anyone is meaning to object to your faith, I think it's not obvious how to reconcile the parts of your faith that don't seem consistent with science in such a way that science can answer your question. Science pretty much says that there is no fish that can fit the bill... if you want the "closest fit," and assume that a miracle accounts for the difference, there's still a lot of room for argument as to what the "closest fit" would be, because once you accept that miracles are occurring, it's hard to decide whether it is a more likely miracle for it to have been a big whale, a big shark, a big clownfish, or a big river catfish that miraculously swam out of the amazon into salt water and made its way to the Mediterranean.

Just my -- I just haven't seen a coherent question so I'm not surprised that there's not much agreement on the answer. Monty

thanks Monty for your thoughts! I agree with you, there is a lot of wiggle room here -- certainly nobody can say "It was a great white shark, I know, I was there..." :hmm: At this point I like the thought it was a large fish (probably 15-25 feet long) but not of the shark family (as Jonah was vomited up -- going through those teeth which are pointed inward may pose a problem...:shock:) I like the thought of a grouper too. But that's just speculation on my part. Like you, I've also considered the possibility that God created a special fish just for the occasion. Hey, anything's possible! I've had a number of people ask, so I'll just say briefly, no I'm not a bible "literalist", I believe some is parabolic, some is literal, some is allegorical and some is figurative. The Jonah account I believe is factual. And no, my faith hasn't taken any hits on this one. Differing views make for the best conversations! It's been a very invigorating discussion and I appreciate the spirit very much! Now, about that grouper... :grin:

Ni!
run away run away

Well, while the scientists scoff at the existance of large carcharodons, their only proof is "well, we haven't dissected one yet."...

But isn't that the true scientific way? Don't believe anything without empirical evidence? :squidaut:

And thank you, Feelers, for your thoughtful reply to my query. Again, I am not a scientist, and not up on all the "where withal" that most scientists are privy to. I can only question on the basis of what I read and hear on various news/documentary shows (very interesting stuff! - esp. Shark Week!).

But it still seems to me that there should just be "more" to go on than what I am seeing and hearing. There's no DNA to base things on when speaking of fossils... there's no real way to date fish fossils found in water as sea, ocean, etc is just too fluid (realizing of course that fossils are carbon-dated by the ground they're found in rather than by the fossil itself)... it just leaves too much up in the air! What else is there?

Again, thank you for the info... if I get on anyone's nerves... let me know.

P.S. It seems to be that a wise Creator who created all the laws of the universe would not be so quick to violate the very laws He put into motion -- at least, not too often. So any fish that would swallow a man would probably be one that was already here... perhaps this "sea monster" was one of those that was "fished" out of existance between then and now? I mean, how many whale species could no longer exist due to man's wastefulness?

I am not entirely sure, but I believe that carbon dating is only good for 50,000 years. After that, Argon dating is the method used, although that might be only for volcanic activity. Perhaps someone else can explain?

Anyways on the dating thing wikipedia has a fairly good brief rundown on the techniques used. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_methods

Just thought I'd see if wikipedia had Megalodon, and the info your after about it is here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon .
It appears there are different groups of thought within the scientific community about it. It even has that quote from 1918 in the start of the thread.
Wikipedia's awesome :grin:

Carbon dating uses material from the fossil itself, and Feelers is correct is only useful to maybe ~50,000 yrs, which is actually pretty optimistic for most specimens and most laboratories. The half life of 14C is about 5730 yrs, so that's roughly 9 half-lives. Usually you don't go much beyond 6 half-lives.

Feelers is also correct there's a few other radioactive isotopes in the toolbox with different half-lives that are useful and I'm sure the Wikipedia entry has plenty of useful information.

There are a number of other drawers in the geochronologist's toolbox as well. The "key" is finding events that manifest themselves globally, but also quickly. Quickly as in they happen faster than the resolution of sedimentation. An example of this is the magnetic poles reversing. This happens on a scale of hundreds to thousands of years, and manifests itself in many sedimentary rocks. If you take a piece of a sedimentary rock out that has, say, magnetite grains cemented in it, you can tell which way was north and which way was south back when it was deposited. That in and of itself isn't very useful, but scientists have put together a complete record of every reversal going back hundreds of millions of years and given them nice numbers. I'll come back to that in a sec.

Another thing to use are fossils. Specifically fossils of animals that evolve and spread around the world quickly, like the ammonites.

The trick is putting all this data together. The project for my master's degree has to do with the Hell Creek and Fort Union formations in the US western interior. The Hell Creek is a system that is dominated by terrestrial sedimentation (flooding rivers), and it sits on another formation called the Fox Hills which is mostly deposition just offshore.

What if I want to know the age of the contact between the Hell Creek and Fox Hills? There's a few ash layers around, but they're not very good and no one's gotten a very good radiometric date from them. So I start looking for ammonites as close to the top of the Fox Hills as I can. When I find a good one, I know old it is because someone's already done the work of finding that genus of ammonite next to a date-able volcanic layer somewhere else in the world. Once I know that, I know the maximum age that contact could be, say roughly 70 million years. To find the other end of the range, I have to look in the Hell Creek formation. This is more difficult because its terrestrial where a) things don't always evolve as quickly, b) things don't preserve as well and c) the sedimentation rate might not be as high (lower resolution).

So maybe the only thing I see there are a bunch of Triceratops. That doesn't help me because they lived for a few millions of years, it doesn't narrow things down.

But then I do a paleo-mag study, and find there's a big pole reversal right smack dab in the middle of the formation. Since other scientists before me have made a near-complete record of when these reversals occured (again, by finding the reversal in another part of the world next to something that's dateable in a different way), then I only need to figure out which reversal it is. In fact (without looking at my notes) I believe its 29R to 29N (reverse to normal polar orientation) which we determine because we know its the only one between 70 and 65 million years (the latter date being a decent radiometric date from a number of separate locations for the K/T boundary), and we know from previous work that reversal is around 67 million years.

So from this we know our contact is between 67 and 70 million years old. To get this further we can do things like estimate sedimentation rates. Since we know two points in the Hell Creek, our reversal and a radiometric date from the top of the formation, we can determine a rate of sedimentation for that time, say a certain number of centimeters per thousand years. We might assume that was a constant rate (which in many cases is a testable hypothesis!!) and extrapolate the time to the bottom of the formation from that magnetic point we have in the middle.

Basically it all comes down to a framework of relative ages. We know event A is younger than event B because it is higher stratigraphically. We know that A is the same as C because the same index fossil (one that's global but goes extinct real quick) at both sites; thus we know C is younger than B. Etc, etc etc. Once you have that relative framework, you can start getting radiometric dates anywhere in the system and calibrating when everything is on an absolute scale.

Now, in reality, its a lot more complicated then that. You're using lots of different fossils at the same time :)

Dan

Thank you, Dan, for giving me what is probably the best reply one can provide to an amateur (or less). :wink:

Thank you, Feelers, for the link... very interesting! I really enjoyed the 1918 quote! One truly has to wonder what could possibly frighten so badly these seasoned fishermen! Wow!

Thanks to all! I have kept you off topic too long. Perhaps it is best I sit back and 'listen.'

My last poser would be... "are Jellyfish kosher?" :grin: