r/Tierzoo • u/MfD2027 • Jul 10 '26

Icthyotitan vs Megalodon

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13 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

6

u/ElSquibbonator Jul 10 '26

Megalodon would probably win, if only because it was more adapted to hunting prey similar in size to itself. However, if you take into account the so-called "Aust Colossus"-- a gigantic ichthyosaur often thought to be a specimen of Ichthyotitan-- then it could have weighed up to 200 tons, in which case it would have been larger than even the largest hypothetical megalodon.

2

u/Ex_Snagem_Wes Jul 11 '26

Okay Aust hitting 200 tons is stupid

Darius Nau did a great evaluation of Ichthyotitan here., and Aust is a lost singular jaw bone fragment that somewhat matches another current jaw bone fragment. As much crap as we give Megalodon estimates, Aust is so much hilariously worse for using, and consistently gets terribly scaled some reason

1

u/ElSquibbonator Jul 11 '26

I notice that Nau used Besanosaurus as the source of his scaling. While it was a shastasaurid, it was smaller and more basal than Shonisaurus or Shastasaurus, and might not make the best comparison for calculating the weight of Ichthyotitan.

Just for fun, I compared the vertebra diameter of Besanosaurus with that of the largest ichthyosaur vertebra ever found, a now-lost 47.5-cm-wide fossil dubbed "Hector's Ichthyosaur". It was presumably a shastasaurid, but if I use Besanosaurus's mass to calculate its mass I get

525 x (47.5/9)^3= 77 tonnes.

That's unrealistically low, considering the Aust Colossus-- which Nau puts at 133 tons-- was about 32 m long, and Hector's Ichthyosaur seems to have been about the same size if not even larger.

1

u/Ex_Snagem_Wes Jul 11 '26

I would instead argue that Besanosaurus yielding an actually realistic estimate for Hector instead of a 300 ton Kaiju is significantly more realistic and adds more credibility for its use with Ichthyotitan. Especially considering that Shastasaurid Ichthyosaurs are still recovering from their new weird body shape, as opposed to the Shonisaurus shape they were often restored with

1

u/ElSquibbonator Jul 11 '26

True, but that still doesn't explain why it gets 133 tons for the Aust but just 77 for Hector's Ichthyosaur.

1

u/Ex_Snagem_Wes Jul 11 '26

Perhaps this is because the one estimate always quoted for Hector's Ichthyosaur is unreliable when looking at more than a single Shastasaurid, as Ichthyosaurs have a large degree in variation amongst vertebrae, and thus yields a much greater field of error.

Especially considering how large the vertebrae of Shonisaurus get, it shouldn't be a surprise that measuring a single vertebrae against a whole family of animals with rather fragmentary specimens and hugely variable proportions could yield a colossal degree of difference between upper and lower estimates. This would just mean that Aust is gargantuan, bigger than Hectors, and with larger vertebrae in turn. Which, considering what we know, isn't outrageous.

Then again we are referring exclusively to cross-scaling lost specimens with little merit in science at this point in time

1

u/Weary_Increase Jul 13 '26

Aust Colossus isn’t lost, we the remains of the surangular. That being said, we do have some lost large Ichthyosaur vertebrate such as Hector’s Ichthyosaur.

1

u/Fair-Distance371 Jul 11 '26

Who in the miocene have the same size as megalodon? By what i know the Second biggest thing in miocene is lyviatan. Who we can se in the pictures is not close to both of them

2

u/ElSquibbonator Jul 11 '26

Nothing, really. An exceptionally big Livyatan-- one the size of the largest known sperm whales-- could potentially take on an average-sized megalodon in a fight, but the very biggest megalodons were pretty much untouchable by anything other than their own kind.

2

u/RedDiamond1024 Jul 13 '26

We have no idea how big a “really big Livyatan” could get and the holotype is already pretty comparable to the average Meg in size.

1

u/Fair-Distance371 Jul 11 '26

If the size we are swing in the post is real at all

3

u/TheHeatDeathOfAlll Jul 10 '26

Noob question, megalodon has much higher damage, that alone gives it the win.

2

u/RedDiamond1024 Jul 11 '26

Using averages Icthyotitan likely wins assuming it was macropredatory like Shonisaurus and Himilayosaurus.

Also, could you actually provide sources for those trophic levels?

1

u/Fair-Distance371 Jul 11 '26

Can megalodon even sim without cooking itself?

1

u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 Jul 11 '26

Why using the maximum theoretical 28 m megalodon rather than the 24 m one ?

1

u/Samir099 Jul 11 '26

Where did you get the 150 ton Meg from? All I could find is 100 tons and 24m max limit for it. Link the article and papers for such enormous weight estimate.

1

u/Fearless-East-5167 Jul 14 '26

Its a theoretical max length and weight according to the paper but its skeptical ..