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Description
There is an animal that could have defeated the megalodon but nobody talked about it. The sperm whale, but I´m not talking about the Livyatan mellvelli, I´m talking about a big male bull modern Physeter macrocephalus. An average megalodon was 16 meters long and 50 tonnes but they would have reached 20 meters and more than 100 tonnes. An average male bull sperm whale is 18 meters and 40 tonnes but they can reach 24 meters and more than 100 tonnes. Male sperm whales continue growing during all their life and they can live for more than 70 or 80 years.

You may subestimate the figthing abilities because they dont have a great bite force but this is not it main weapon, it´s not all about biting and byte force.

Male sperm whales has 2 main weapons and both are in their disproportionately big heads. They can do great blows with their head and they can produce high energy direccional sound pulses.

The front part of the sperm whale head has 2 specialitations. The spermaceti organ (B)wich function is buoyancy control . And the Junk melon(A) that is a conective tissue enriched in collagen that work as the head of a hammer, it´s specialiced in collide and also works as a lens to concentrate sound pulses like all odontocetes .

Bull male sperm whales can sink whaler ships 3 to 5 times their weigth with their head blows. There are 3 documented waler ships sunk by sperm whales. The ESSEX, the ANN ALEXANDER and the BARK KATHLEEN. The ESSEX inspired Herman Melville to write his famous novel Moby Dick. The ANN ALEXANDER was a war ship wich had survived the trafalgar battle and then refited as a whailinh ship. On August 20 1851 a huge male sperm whale sunk it with only one heas blow that destroyed one side of it hull under the floating line. The whale survived but large wood pieces stuck in its head. That whale was found 5 month after that by the Rebecca Simms very week by the infection in its head due to the wood pieces stuked at it and was hunted. It´s lower jaw is in the New Bedford museum and is 5,5 meters long wich corresponds to a 24 meters bull male sperm whale the bigest one measured. The whale who sunk the ESSEX was reported to be bigger but it never was measured so it could have been exagerated. Just a few months later, October 18, 1851, and November 14, 1851, the first editions of Hermann Melville's great whaling novel Moby-Dick, inspired by the Essex attack, were published. Melville commented, "Ye Gods! What a commentator is this Ann Alexander whale. What he has to say is short & pithy & very much to the point. I wonder if my evil art has raised this monster."

Sperm whale tales

Ahab’s Historicism: Changing Whale Behavior in History

jeb.biologists.org/content/jex…

The other weapon is the sound pulse. Sound pulsed are produced by the ecolocation system of odontocetes, They can produced high directional sounds that give them the ability to detect prey. A bottlenose dolphin can diferenciate 2 metal bars wiuth a diference of only 0,2 milimeters in front of them, or two 1 cm objects at 15 meters from then or detect a 5 cm ball 60 meters in front of them or a human diver 600 meters far away or something the size of a megalodon more than 3 km away. A sperm whale is specializated in detecting big objects that are far away so they cannot detect de small ball in front of them but they can detect something as big as a megalodon 45 km far away. But ecolocation is higly directional and also active so the odontocete have to look in the direction of the shark and to produce a sound of the correct frequency to detect it, if the shark atact from behind the whale won´t see it, but if the whale detect it, the shark can´t hide from it.

Odontocetes can also concentrate a high energy sound pulse in a small area to stunt or kill their prey. A a 160 Db sound can produce pain, 180 Db sound can break the eardrum and a 210 Db sound can produce tissue dammage. Bottlenose dolphin can concentrate a 230 Db sound at a distance of 1 meter. They use sonar pulses to figth each other or stunt and kill their prey and they also use them to drive away big sharks avoiding fisical contact. A sperm whale can concentrate a 236 Db sound at great distances, they use them to stunt and kill giant squids and sharks like the sleeper shark that can reach 7 meters and more than 1 ton.

Association between burst‐pulse sounds and aggressive behavior in captive Atlantic bottlenosed dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)

marinebioacoustics.com/files/2…

Megalodon had a very strong skin and reinforced cartylaginous skeleton, that was a very effective protection againts sharp teeth and strong bytes but was ineffective againts strong blows or sound pulses. It was like hiting a man in a hauberk with a big hammer, the hauberk protect him for knifes, swords and arrows but not to the blow of a hammer.

There are 2 possible situations. The sperm whale can dive for up to 136 minutes but after such dive it have to rest and bread several times for 30 minutes to recover. In that situation is vulnerable and if a megalodon finds it here it would be an easy prey.

But if the sperm whale catch the megalodon attaking one of the females or calfs of it pod it would´n let it go. The sperm whale is going to blow the megalodon with its head and the megalodon will die by internal organs dammage. If the shark try to attack the sperm whale it would recive a sound pulse in its senitive nose wich is going to stop the megalodon attack an then is going to blow it internal organs with its head. So a big bull male sperm whale can defeat a megalodon and is better prepared to do it than the Livyatan mellvelli or the orcas.

Other aspect to analize is cognitive abilities of sperm whales. Sperm whales has the biggest brain of any animal and their comunication system includes codas (trains of pulsed sounds) that use to identify each other and other comunication. This codas differ from different populations and there is evidence of cultural transmition and cultural differentiation between different populations. Their comunication system is more complex than apes comunication system. So I can say that sperm whales have at least the same level of cognitive abilities than apes ore even more. That mean that sperm whales have high level of empathy and at least some metacognition abilities.

Sharks may have relative big overall brains but most of that volume is ocuped by the olfatory bulb and visual and auditive bulbs, The prosensefalum that is the part of the brain responsible for higer cognitive abilities is very small in sharks even smaller than in bonny fish. So even if sharks have very fast reflexes very good sences and some trial and error lerning abilities, they lack some cognitive abilities that are basic for mamals like the abilitie to choose between different options, working memory or empathy and of course metacognition. A shark like megalodon will folow it senses and if it find a prey it will atack it without looking arround and if it is eating it wouldn´t react to other stimulus. When white sharks are festing in a whale carcass you can touch them and they won´t react.

There are a lot of fossils of whales of the family phiseteroidea like Zygophyseter, Acrophyseter, Brygmophyseter and Livyatan mellvillei that date from oligocene to miosene but there are very few fossils of modern sperm whales, there is one found in Montpellier which is in a Pliocene marine sandstone in France and dates from 5.332 to 2.588 Millon years. Megalodon desapeared 3,6 millon years ago and it had envolved to be bigger until they got extinct. So Physeter macrocephalus may have coexisted with megalodon. If so they coexisted with the biggest ones so that may was involved in de evolution of so powerfull big bull males.

So let we set the seting.

Somewere in south pasific, 4045676 years ago there was a sperm whales pod. In the surface there are some females and calfs. Suddenly somethink comes from the deep. It is a big 13 metter female sperm whale with a giant squid in her mouth. She don´t have teeth but she don´t need them, she killed that squid with sound pulses. When reached the surfase she breath 2 times and then she produced a coda. A 6 meter calf come close to her and she give the squid to the calf. The calf started shalowing the big squid with some difficulty but finally he could shalow it whole. When only the tips of the squid tentacles were protruding from the calf mouth something apeared comming from the deep very fast. It is a 22 meters huge female megalodon that quikly bited the female whale tail with so much strength that practically tooked it off. The female sperm whale started screaming and moving a lot bleeding frofusely. The shark started swiming arround the pair and then behind it, ready to finish the female sperm whale. Suddenly some loud sounds were heared, boom boom boom boom boom. That sound becomed louder and louder until the shark couln´t feel any smell or electrical signal any more. The sound becomed even lowder and the shark started to feel pain in her sensitive nose and runed away. After that a big 24 meter bull sperm whale surfaced and breathed in the surfase. He aproached the mortal wounded female and gotted furious. He started to ecolocate to find the shark.

He find the shark 200 meters behind aproaching to him at very high speed so he dived in the direction of te shark. He started shooting strong sound pulses to the shark sensitive nose until the shark turned left 50 meter behind the sperm whale and started to camber side to side (a natural steriotyped agressive display from sharks). The whale continued shooting even stronger sound pulses to the shark nose until it got stunt. Afterthat the sperm whale attaked the shark with a very strong blow with the collagen reinforced part of his head, the junk. He hitted the shark over the rigth pectoral fin and the blow was so strong that the heart, gills and the upper part of her liver were heavily damaged and the shark were thrown out 30 meters ahead of the whale.

The huge female megalodon cambered side to side and started to bleed by her gills and mouth. She cambered slower and slower and started to slowly sunk. After some minutes the shark stop moving and her dead body sunk to the deep.

The male sperm whale resurfaced and aproached the female sperm whale, she was dead so he started to splash the water very strong with his tail with fury.

The calf was adopted by the other females of the pod and growed to be a big bull sperm whale like his father and killed some of the last megalodons defending his pod.

4045487 years after that one of his desendants, a huge male sperm whale found 4 whaling boats atacking the females of his pod, as experienced as he was he searched the whailing moder ship, it was de ESSEX. He ignored the whailing boats and sunk the mother ship.

40 Years after that, the explosive harpoons were invented and the whailing fleets targeted the bigger males. Millons were killed until the fall of the Soviet Union. Today male sperm whale so big are not reported. May be we only have to wait for them to grow enaugth.

Description
There is an animal that could have defeated the megalodon but nobody talked about it. The sperm whale, but I´m not talking about the Livyatan mellvelli, I´m talking about a big male bull modern Physeter macrocephalus. An average megalodon was 16 meters long and 50 tonnes but they would have reached 20 meters and more than 100 tonnes. An average male bull sperm whale is 18 meters and 40 tonnes but they can reach 24 meters and more than 100 tonnes. Male sperm whales continue growing during all their life and they can live for more than 70 or 80 years.

You may subestimate the figthing abilities because they dont have a great bite force but this is not it main weapon, it´s not all about biting and byte force.

Male sperm whales has 2 main weapons and both are in their disproportionately big heads. They can do great blows with their head and they can produce high energy direccional sound pulses.

The front part of the sperm whale head has 2 specialitations. The spermaceti organ (B)wich function is buoyancy control . And the Junk melon(A) that is a conective tissue enriched in collagen that work as the head of a hammer, it´s specialiced in collide and also works as a lens to concentrate sound pulses like all odontocetes .

Bull male sperm whales can sink whaler ships 3 to 5 times their weigth with their head blows. There are 3 documented waler ships sunk by sperm whales. The ESSEX, the ANN ALEXANDER and the BARK KATHLEEN. The ESSEX inspired Herman Melville to write his famous novel Moby Dick. The ANN ALEXANDER was a war ship wich had survived the trafalgar battle and then refited as a whailinh ship. On August 20 1851 a huge male sperm whale sunk it with only one heas blow that destroyed one side of it hull under the floating line. The whale survived but large wood pieces stuck in its head. That whale was found 5 month after that by the Rebecca Simms very week by the infection in its head due to the wood pieces stuked at it and was hunted. It´s lower jaw is in the New Bedford museum and is 5,5 meters long wich corresponds to a 24 meters bull male sperm whale the bigest one measured. The whale who sunk the ESSEX was reported to be bigger but it never was measured so it could have been exagerated. Just a few months later, October 18, 1851, and November 14, 1851, the first editions of Hermann Melville's great whaling novel Moby-Dick, inspired by the Essex attack, were published. Melville commented, "Ye Gods! What a commentator is this Ann Alexander whale. What he has to say is short & pithy & very much to the point. I wonder if my evil art has raised this monster."

Sperm whale tales

Ahab’s Historicism: Changing Whale Behavior in History

jeb.biologists.org/content/jex…

The other weapon is the sound pulse. Sound pulsed are produced by the ecolocation system of odontocetes, They can produced high directional sounds that give them the ability to detect prey. A bottlenose dolphin can diferenciate 2 metal bars wiuth a diference of only 0,2 milimeters in front of them, or two 1 cm objects at 15 meters from then or detect a 5 cm ball 60 meters in front of them or a human diver 600 meters far away or something the size of a megalodon more than 3 km away. A sperm whale is specializated in detecting big objects that are far away so they cannot detect de small ball in front of them but they can detect something as big as a megalodon 45 km far away. But ecolocation is higly directional and also active so the odontocete have to look in the direction of the shark and to produce a sound of the correct frequency to detect it, if the shark atact from behind the whale won´t see it, but if the whale detect it, the shark can´t hide from it.

Odontocetes can also concentrate a high energy sound pulse in a small area to stunt or kill their prey. A a 160 Db sound can produce pain, 180 Db sound can break the eardrum and a 210 Db sound can produce tissue dammage. Bottlenose dolphin can concentrate a 230 Db sound at a distance of 1 meter. They use sonar pulses to figth each other or stunt and kill their prey and they also use them to drive away big sharks avoiding fisical contact. A sperm whale can concentrate a 236 Db sound at great distances, they use them to stunt and kill giant squids and sharks like the sleeper shark that can reach 7 meters and more than 1 ton.

Association between burst‐pulse sounds and aggressive behavior in captive Atlantic bottlenosed dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)

marinebioacoustics.com/files/2…

Megalodon had a very strong skin and reinforced cartylaginous skeleton, that was a very effective protection againts sharp teeth and strong bytes but was ineffective againts strong blows or sound pulses. It was like hiting a man in a hauberk with a big hammer, the hauberk protect him for knifes, swords and arrows but not to the blow of a hammer.

There are 2 possible situations. The sperm whale can dive for up to 136 minutes but after such dive it have to rest and bread several times for 30 minutes to recover. In that situation is vulnerable and if a megalodon finds it here it would be an easy prey.

But if the sperm whale catch the megalodon attaking one of the females or calfs of it pod it would´n let it go. The sperm whale is going to blow the megalodon with its head and the megalodon will die by internal organs dammage. If the shark try to attack the sperm whale it would recive a sound pulse in its senitive nose wich is going to stop the megalodon attack an then is going to blow it internal organs with its head. So a big bull male sperm whale can defeat a megalodon and is better prepared to do it than the Livyatan mellvelli or the orcas.

Other aspect to analize is cognitive abilities of sperm whales. Sperm whales has the biggest brain of any animal and their comunication system includes codas (trains of pulsed sounds) that use to identify each other and other comunication. This codas differ from different populations and there is evidence of cultural transmition and cultural differentiation between different populations. Their comunication system is more complex than apes comunication system. So I can say that sperm whales have at least the same level of cognitive abilities than apes ore even more. That mean that sperm whales have high level of empathy and at least some metacognition abilities.

Sharks may have relative big overall brains but most of that volume is ocuped by the olfatory bulb and visual and auditive bulbs, The prosensefalum that is the part of the brain responsible for higer cognitive abilities is very small in sharks even smaller than in bonny fish. So even if sharks have very fast reflexes very good sences and some trial and error lerning abilities, they lack some cognitive abilities that are basic for mamals like the abilitie to choose between different options, working memory or empathy and of course metacognition. A shark like megalodon will folow it senses and if it find a prey it will atack it without looking arround and if it is eating it wouldn´t react to other stimulus. When white sharks are festing in a whale carcass you can touch them and they won´t react.

There are a lot of fossils of whales of the family phiseteroidea like Zygophyseter, Acrophyseter, Brygmophyseter and Livyatan mellvillei that date from oligocene to miosene but there are very few fossils of modern sperm whales, there is one found in Montpellier which is in a Pliocene marine sandstone in France and dates from 5.332 to 2.588 Millon years. Megalodon desapeared 3,6 millon years ago and it had envolved to be bigger until they got extinct. So Physeter macrocephalus may have coexisted with megalodon. If so they coexisted with the biggest ones so that may was involved in de evolution of so powerfull big bull males.

So let we set the seting.

Somewere in south pasific, 4045676 years ago there was a sperm whales pod. In the surface there are some females and calfs. Suddenly somethink comes from the deep. It is a big 13 metter female sperm whale with a giant squid in her mouth. She don´t have teeth but she don´t need them, she killed that squid with sound pulses. When reached the surfase she breath 2 times and then she produced a coda. A 6 meter calf come close to her and she give the squid to the calf. The calf started shalowing the big squid with some difficulty but finally he could shalow it whole. When only the tips of the squid tentacles were protruding from the calf mouth something apeared comming from the deep very fast. It is a 22 meters huge female megalodon that quikly bited the female whale tail with so much strength that practically tooked it off. The female sperm whale started screaming and moving a lot bleeding frofusely. The shark started swiming arround the pair and then behind it, ready to finish the female sperm whale. Suddenly some loud sounds were heared, boom boom boom boom boom. That sound becomed louder and louder until the shark couln´t feel any smell or electrical signal any more. The sound becomed even lowder and the shark started to feel pain in her sensitive nose and runed away. After that a big 24 meter bull sperm whale surfaced and breathed in the surfase. He aproached the mortal wounded female and gotted furious. He started to ecolocate to find the shark.

He find the shark 200 meters behind aproaching to him at very high speed so he dived in the direction of te shark. He started shooting strong sound pulses to the shark sensitive nose until the shark turned left 50 meter behind the sperm whale and started to camber side to side (a natural steriotyped agressive display from sharks). The whale continued shooting even stronger sound pulses to the shark nose until it got stunt. Afterthat the sperm whale attaked the shark with a very strong blow with the collagen reinforced part of his head, the junk. He hitted the shark over the rigth pectoral fin and the blow was so strong that the heart, gills and the upper part of her liver were heavily damaged and the shark were thrown out 30 meters ahead of the whale.

The huge female megalodon cambered side to side and started to bleed by her gills and mouth. She cambered slower and slower and started to slowly sunk. After some minutes the shark stop moving and her dead body sunk to the deep.

The male sperm whale resurfaced and aproached the female sperm whale, she was dead so he started to splash the water very strong with his tail with fury.

The calf was adopted by the other females of the pod and growed to be a big bull sperm whale like his father and killed some of the last megalodons defending his pod.

4045487 years after that one of his desendants, a huge male sperm whale found 4 whaling boats atacking the females of his pod, as experienced as he was he searched the whailing moder ship, it was de ESSEX. He ignored the whailing boats and sunk the mother ship.

40 Years after that, the explosive harpoons were invented and the whailing fleets targeted the bigger males. Millons were killed until the fall of the Soviet Union. Today male sperm whale so big are not reported. May be we only have to wait for them to grow enaugth.