what is this??

[OB]

Phil, are you telling me that these are 1 million years or older? Enamel is hardy, but is it this tough?

 

[Castor]

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]

Phil, are you telling me that these 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.

Anyway, back to Jonah.

 

[bobwonderbuns]

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?

 

[OB]

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

 

[bigGdelta]

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

 

[bobwonderbuns]

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

 

[OB]

Ah, good old Lusca!

 

[bobwonderbuns]

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?

 

[bigGdelta]

Blue holes are coral caves found in the bahamas

 

[bobwonderbuns]

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

 

[Phil]

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), 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.

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.

 

[bobwonderbuns]

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!

 

[Clem]

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

 

[monty]

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!

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.