tremendous teeth belonging to a relative of the nightmarishmegalodonhave been discovered scattered around the Earth , which is exactly as terrifying as it sound .

The ancient choppers were found in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans , and go to a submarine murder machine known asMegalolamna paradoxodon . The largest of these tooth measured 4.5 centimeters ( 1.77 inches ) in length , which result researchers to reckon that the shark itself was in all probability between 3.7 and 7.2 meters ( 12.1 to 23.6 feet ) long , base on the body distance to tooth size ratio of other sharks .

While this may not be anywhere nigh as great as the enigmatical megalodon – which is think to have produce to a length of between 10 and 20 meters ( 33 and 67 feet ) – M. paradoxodoncould still more than hold its own in the precarious water of the prehistorical earthly concern 20 million years ago .

Describing the deadly denture in the journalHistorical Biology , a squad of researchers led by DePaul University in Chicago explained that the creature ’s prior teeth were perfectly designed for “ grasp ” and “ tearing ” prey , while its lateral tooth were well adjust for “ cut ” .

As such , they suspect it probably fed on intermediate - sized fish – potentially including other sharks – and a stove of other creatures that were unfortunate enough to apportion the ocean withM. paradoxodonwhen it patrolled Earth ’s waters .

Like moderngreat white sharksand themegalodon , this newfangled increase to the sea ’s hit squad belonged to a group of shark know as Lamniformes . However , while the slap-up whiteness share a plebeian ancestor with these two extinct coinage , the study author stress that it did not descend directly from them , but is instead the product of a disjoined evolutionary branch .

M. paradoxodonteeth were   found in five locations across the world , in the shallow coastal waters off California , North Carolina , Peru , and Japan . This suggests that , like moderngreat White , the creature had a broad geographic range with few places it dared not go . pass the sort of munition it was carry in its jaws , that ’s not much of a surprisal .