Megalodon set to become Maryland’s state shark
Popular Science...
The megalodon (Otodus megalodon) is another step closer to becoming the first state shark in the United States. At the last second, a bill to name the extinct behemoth Maryland’s state shark passed on the final day of the legislative session in Annapolis.
According to WMAR-Baltimore, the House of Delegates passed its version of the bill (HB97) earlier in the session. However, the Senate’s version stalled in committee. It was added to a bill that has already passed (SB0035) on the last day of the session.
The bill is now headed to Governor Wes Moore’s desk. If signed as expected, Maryland’s state shark designation will officially take effect on October 1. The megalodon will join Maryland’s other state symbols, including the Baltimore oriole (state bird), jousting (state sport), and walking (state exercise).
Delegate Todd Morgan, who wrote one of two bills backing the megalodon, celebrated its passage in a Facebook post.
“There are so many people, young and old, who have worked beside us to make this possible. It’s been so much work people don’t see. But, to the hundreds of kids, literally, who have written letters and drawn pictures, this has been one of the enjoyable bills that legislators actually had some fun with.”
While the mighty megalodon is not swimming along the shores of the Bay State now, the enormous prehistoric shark relative once dominated the shallow seas that covered Maryland and the rest of the Atlantic coastal plain. They lived about 23 million years ago (during the Miocene Epoch), before going extinct about 3.6 million years ago. They were about three times bigger than a modern great white shark. Some estimates put them upwards of 82-feet-long and 66,000 pounds. They primarily ate whales and the ancestors of dolphins and manatees, while their young hunted seals.
But why should “the meg” be the state shark of Maryland? The beaches along southern Maryland are full of megalodon fossils—particularly their giant teeth. Megalodon teeth have been found in several counties including Anne Arundel, Caroline, Calvert, Charles, Dorchester, Prince George’s, and St. Mary’s. Citizen scientists and paleontologists alike have also uncovered teeth from other non-megalodon prehistoric shark species including Galeocerdo contortus and Galeocerdo triqueter (similar to modern day tiger sharks) and Sphyrma prisca (a relative of the hammer head shark).
Calvert Cliffs State Park in southern Maryland is a common spot for digging up teeth and the Calvert Marine Museum has a number of fossils on display. Paleontologists believe that Maryland was once a whale and dolphin calving ground and nursery for hungry megalodons. A roughly 15-million-year-old fractured whale vertebrae and tooth uncovered in Calvert Cliffs even shows evidence of a possible megalodon attack.
“Turns out no state has a state shark, so we’re hoping Maryland is the first,” Dr. Stephen Godfrey, curator of paleontology at southern Maryland’s Calvert Marine Museum, told reporters in January. “To me, this is such an iconic animal. I think it’s time for megalodon to take center stage as the first shark designated as a state shark.”
The museum celebrated the bill in a press release and thanked the legislators.
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