Carcharodon megalodon Shark Tooth Fossil

Carcharodon megalodon shark tooth fossil displayed at the Hall of Vertebrate Origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, USA. The fossil dates to the Miocene Epoch of the Neogene Period.

Megalodon Shark Jaw Model

Suspended from the ceiling in the Hall of Vertebrate Origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, USA, is a model of Carcharodon megalodon shark. This shark was one of the largest to ever exist and dates to the Neogene Period (Pliocene and Miocene Epoch).

Megalodon 3D Printed Tooth Fossil

I have been printing some more Megalodon shark tooth fossils based off the scanned model found here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1380493

These images show my latest variation where I printed the layers are 0.1 mm so the tooth consists of over 900 layers. I also added a base made with OpenSCAD as well raft printing to make the base more stable. I tried to slow the printing down so the bottom of the tooth is less stringy. It turned out better but still far from perfect. The print took about 6 hours.

Merry Fossil Christmas 2016

It has become a tradition for me to each year to Photoshop a fossil Christmas tree image together. This year I went in a little different and used a fossil I 3D printed. The tree consists of a Megalodon tooth printed on a RepRapGuru printer and using the Repetier Host software with the Cura slicer. The print image can be found on Thingiverse and was posted by Emdahus.  I had to print with supports and then cut them out of the image, without them the print would move off the glass surface between layer 3-40.

Most prints have been with PLA filament from Hatchbox and 3D Solutech.

The fossil ornaments were ones I used on the 2014 Christmas image. http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2014/12/merry-christmas-2014.html

How To Be A Dunkleosteus

Back in January 2014 I wrote about How To Be A Megalodon Shark which was about the popular smartphone game Hungry Shark Evolution. In that posting, I was hoping they would create an arthrodire or mosasaur creature to play in the game. Well they have created a Dunkleosteus. It is one fearsome creature with some artistic gaming license added in. The creature has been given a double mouth with the inner able to project out like the creatures in the Aliens movie. It is somewhat creepy.

This game is mixing modern fish and sharks with fossil sharks Megalodon (Cenozoic Era) and the Dunkleosteus (Paleozoic Era - Devonian Period). The game designers did pick two of the more popular sea creatures that are shown in fossil sections of museums.

In the game the Dunkleosteus is the most powerful creature revealed so far but in reality the Megalodon was much bigger though not armored like the Dunkleosteus.  The game info screen shown below is amusing by listing "A newly discovered prehistoric colossus. Some say this beast was responsible for the extinction of the Megalodon..." which means it can time travel. The Dunkleosteus was extinct by over 300 million years by the time the Megalodon made is appearance on the Earth.

Learn more at this wiki:
http://hungry-shark.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Daddy_%28Dunkleosteus%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon

How To Be A Megalodon Shark

Over the Christmas holiday I asked my young nephew what kinds of games there were to play on a smartphone. One of the games he so quickly installed on my phone was Hungry Shark Evolution from Future Games of London. This game has over 10,000,000 downloads in Google Play store. It is a very fun game. If you are looking for something to play on your smartphone to help pass the time at the airport or some waiting room, this app might fill that need.

The evolution part of the game is you start as a reef shark and with experience and gold found in the game, the player evolves into a Mako shark then Hammerhead shark, then Tiger shark, then Great White shark, and finally a Megalodon.  The game is addictive and has excellent art and game play on the Moto X phone.

The game also has some alien ice sharks one can get for lots of gold and emeralds collected in the game. Personally, I would have tried to model an arthrodire and mosasaur after the Megalodon before creating extraterrestrial sea creatures for the game. Since the software company is from England it would be neat to see them animate some of the ancient creatures whose fossils are found around Lyme Regis and Dorset.

Megalodon Fossil Replica

I borrowed this replica fossil of a C. megalodon shark. The fossil was to be used to show some grade school classes different types of fossils. The topic of dinosaurs and sharks comes up when giving fossil talks so I thought having this to show would give students some idea as to how large these sharks could get. This creature swam around in the Paleogene Period of the Cenozoic Era.
Thanks to Mark for loaning it to me.