Late-Night Talk: Jack Cooper, PhD. Megalodon, Myths, And Modern Shark Science

Students and Graduates!

Jack Cooper, PhD, is a Paleobiologist from Swansea University, science write and public communicator.

His research expertise is about the Megalodon, a pre-historic shark that went extinct 3 Million years ago.

Jack Cooper has been featured in various documentaries about sharks, including a Ted Ed animated video, Channel 5’s Monsters of the Deep with Steve Backshall, and Giants by Off the Fence.

Jack Cooper's website: https://www.drjackacooper.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jack-cooper-00333613b/

Instagram: @cooperpalaeo

Thank you all for tuning in, it has been a pleasure!

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Jack Cooper, it's great. It's a great pleasure to have you here on PhD Launch. And we've been speaking a lot on oh, you have to come to my podcast, you have to come to the podcast every single time, even doing the talking research. So welcome, man, and it's great to have you here.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Oh well, thank you very much for having me. I've definitely been keen to come on here for a while now, so it's great to finally be here.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Thank you very much. And just noticed that you have your uh uh Lego shock right behind you, and also a ship. Could you just uh tell us what it is about? Is it the mega badon noise or crate white shock?

SPEAKER_03 3:54

So this is actually the uh Lego Jaws set. I uh I unashamedly the my girlfriend bought this for me from Legoland for my last birthday, and we made this just over Christmas while we were both sick. Uh what had had a whole bunch of Disney movies in the background. It was a great time.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, so I can see what because Jaws. I think it not it wasn't not long ago, or maybe it was last year that they celebrated 50 years of the film. Yeah, that's right. A friend of mine invited me to go and I said, Okay, he never saw Jaws in in his life. And said, Have you seen Jaws? Yeah, I've I've seen it in VHS and also on the tele several times. I never saw it, so it's a 50-year celebration. And yeah, he's gonna it's about all about sharks.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

I can't believe there's somebody on this planet who hasn't watched Jaws.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

No, no, Jaw Jaws is a classic, and also we were talking all about uh Sharknado, the sci-fi film. Oh, yeah, like a whole series of sharks flying. If you're like, oh, the these are Pegasus from the sea.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

There's a there's a spectrum of shark movies. You have your masterpieces, which is basically just Jaws and nothing else, and then and then you have your utterly ridiculous movies that are so bad they're good, like Sharknado. Yeah, and then you just have your terrible ones like Mega Shark versus Giant Octetus.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Wow. I do also know that there's a few other ones as well that I've seen. This last I think there was a last one. What was the last one, if you have any memory, that appeared?

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Uh there was there was a shark movie this year, I think, about sharks entering a crash plane. It had Ben Kingsley in it, but I've forgotten what it's called. And I know a couple years ago there was a Netflix movie about a shark in the river in Paris or something. I just didn't watch that. Really?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Well, well, if I know a recent film takes back to ancient history, Gladiator 2, and this this one was mind-boggling. You you become dumbfounded because there was never sharks in ancient Rome. And Ridley Scott decided to fill up the arena with water, which it actually indeed existed, naval battles in the in the arena, in the Colosseum, but filling it up with water to do a naval battle where sharks

Shark Films And Pop Culture Myths

SPEAKER_00 6:32

of any nature, of any species, sorry, uh were swimming around waiting for any any soldier, any gladiator to fall down and getting eaten afterwards. So there that was why why is this? Why there's no sharks there were no fucking sharks in the in in ancient Rome. So this this would be a great topic for for Jack to analyze.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Well, it would be, except I never actually saw Gladiator 2, but all I heard about it, yeah, all I heard about it was this scene where there's sharks in the Colosseum, and I I'm not an expert in ancient Rome. My first was no, I don't think so. I also heard the CGI was not good in that scene.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah, I think those yeah, there was no no really good some CGI effects on the naval battles, and I think it's just only one that happened, and also the uh representation of uh 3D animals. There was no way that that rhinoceros uh battering towards the towards the main character and getting his horn wrecked in order to die, yeah. So that's what happens to the to that poor to that poor adult rhinoceros.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

But this this is making me want to watch Ganager 2 though.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Oh no, go for it. I I won't stop you. I won't stop you, but I also other ones don't know if you have seen a Meg featuring Jason Statements.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

Of course, not only have I seen The Meg and Meg 2, the thread, I actually, as a teenager, was an avid fan of the books those movies are based off. So really it's yeah, it's a a lot not a lot of people know that they were based on books, even though it does say in the credits based on the novel by it's by an American author named Steve Olton. And it's interesting, the books they take their topic a bit more seriously, which I can see an audience for that, yeah, but they do get progressively sillier and sillier of each book. I think there's been six books in the series now, and there's a seventh one coming, but the films, to their credit, they know how silly their topic is, and they just go for it. So when people ask me what do I think of those movies, I say Meg 1 is stupid fun, and I have a great time with it. Meg 2 is just stupid, it's a really bad movie.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I mean, and anything about sharks, they they have this this sensationalism, which we'll we will go any further when asking the question, but I I I believe any prehistoric animal that to the more to the modern day they become just so sensationalized of this animal is bad, so we must kill it, and so kind of old kind of thing, which is also quite interesting because of the um the hunt for fin soup, and then interestingly enough, that the fin soup kills even more people than the actual shark, any shark interaction and unprovoked bites or any other source of nature. But we we go further on that one and then asking about but first I'd like to know how this passion for sharks led you to go for a PhD on paleobiology. You've talked to me about the Legos, but uh do you have any other any other thing underneath your sleeve?

SPEAKER_03 10:14

Yes, so my interest in sharks, I think we can date back to about 2003, and I would have been about six going on seven at the time. And this I was very much in my dinosaur phase already at this point. The only holiday we could afford to go on to at the time was to go to London, and I would always beg to go to the Natural History Museum, uh, and it was free, so my parents said, okay. Oh and uh uh a documentary show called Sea Monsters came on to the BBC uh that I think it was that autumn, and in this program, this zoologist named Nigel Marvin would quote unquote time travel and he would scuba dive with the CGI recreations of these prehistoric animals, and that was already pretty cool in itself, but uh one of those animals he scuba dived with was the megalodon, and to me it was absolutely mind-blowing that such a gigantic shark had actually existed in the grand scheme of things not that long ago, and since then I wanted to like know everything I could about this animal. I would pick up library books on sharks just to find the megalodon sessions, but weirdly, it coincided with a bit of a fear of sharks at the time because I watched Jaws at far too young an age and hid it in the cover, so I never had to look at it again. But that interesting sharks sort of formulated from Megalodon and then from a later appreciation of Jaws as I got older, and that sort of led me to decide that I was going to study biology, which took me to the University of St. Andrews to do a degree in evolutionary biology. And although I did not actually work on sharks with them, I actually worked on fruit flies, believe it or not. I did get an opportunity to intern in South Africa in the summers of 2017 and 2018. I went down to the cage diving industry there and dived with great white sharks up close. And it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I can still vividly remember the day I first saw a great white shark. And they tell you it's never just the dorsal fin, that's just ensures. You never see that, but it literally was seeing the dorsal fin first from the water.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Was it that quite big, those great white sharks in South Africa?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Uh, the biggest ones I saw that were alive, and there's a key distinguishing there, and I'll get into it. The biggest ones I saw that were alive were about three and a half to three point eight meters long. So they were big, they were tanky. And the biggest one I saw was a 4.1 meter male that had actually been killed by a pair of killer whales at the time we got to dissect the body. These two killer whales called port and starboard, they do appear in the news pretty much every time they kill a shark. And they had started to appear around 2017, and we got to see one of the bodies. Never saw the orcas, but I saw the damage they did to that poor shark. So, yeah, following that, I was like, I've seen the Great White up close. I definitely want to stay on sharks, but I still had an interest in paleo biology and the fossil record. So I went to the New University of Bristol, which

From Childhood Obsession To PhD

SPEAKER_03 13:30

is the natural place people go if they want to study paleobiology. It's got a brilliant program of master's students there that for the last 30 years or so. And it was there where my sort of career came full circle. I met a researcher from Swansea named Dr. Catalina Pimiento, and she is the world-leading expert on megalodon. She is the only person on earth with two postgraduate theses that are based around megalodon. And wow. Yeah, so uh she and her collaborator at Bristol, Professor Mike Benton, were doing a project on megalodon. So I sent a pathetically long email basically uh selling myself, detailing why I should be on this project. And amazingly, it worked. So I came onto this master's project, we published it, and having such a great experience doing that, I wanted to continue working with Catalina, who literally is, I emphasize, the expert on Regolodon. And she was actually at the time looking to start her own lab group, so she needed a first PhD student. So we had a we came up a project, we found funding with the First Society of the British Isles, who thankfully uh confirmed us right before we went into lockdown in 2020. And yeah, the rest is history at that point. I moved to Swansea later that year and did a four-year funded project on the functional diversity of sharks. And you can actually read that thesis now on the Swansea University Portal if any listeners are interested. Yeah, go to Kronfa.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

That's uh the name, the name of it. He has a DOI. I also have a DOI, but carry on. I know, so that's amazing. And from it's and as you actually said, it was a um the circle was completed, and you'll be able to um you've been you you've been able to realize that everything went down to the way you've ambitioned to it, and saying, Oh my love for shucks, now it's coming coming to a reality. I'm having Dr. Catalina Pimiento the um the world's number one on megalodon, and now keeping doing this type type of research, but at the same time, you are educating the general public, students across university, those who are also might be maybe also interested in studying sharks. And do you still run some workshops? Any public speaking?

SPEAKER_03 16:14

I do do a fair bit of public speaking. Yeah, on top of my regular job here in Bristol, I do have a freelance career where I go to universities or museums and I will talk about sharks, and particularly megalodon. There's an exhibit in Edinburgh right now called Giants, and this is based on giant photosorg animals from the last 66 million years. It was originally an exhibit in Brussels, Belgium, that uh and I was the consulting megalodon expert, as they have this incredible spinal fossil from Megalodon in their collections that they wanted to display alongside all these giant animals. So now, since that particular exhibit was so successful, they've recreated it with casts of the fossils and they've sent it to the UK. So I gave a talk in Birmingham when it was there about Megalodon and about sharks, and I also volunteer with a group called Sharks for Kids. It is this great organization that specializes in teaching children about sharks in various schools. It's based in America, but it you can do virtual lessons and in-person lessons, and it's basically anyone who's interested in sharks can join up. So I do occasionally give talks to school kids in my capacity as work for sharks for kids. And my most recent talks included one just in Swansea, actually, where I revisited a school I used to cycle by every day to go to the office.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Where was it, but where was it in Swansea?

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Uh it would have been in sandfields, and that uh so yeah, very, very cool to go back there and actually see the school and talk to these kids who are very, very excited about sharks.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, I do I agree on that as well. Because uh we assure that we get get some fashionating from some these gigantic um sea animals that that sparks a curiosity. Oh, do they bite? Uh oh, why do they kill? And if like, do they kill actually people? And the first contact I had obviously went through Jaws and seeing documentaries on Discovery Channel with my dad. And and he told me once when I was a kid, that and I asked him, Do do sharks kill dad? Do do sharks kill people? No, they don't. They don't because then he explained to me the situation. So kind of a quick lesson from uh um simple biology for sharks, and it was like, no, they don't kill son because they hate human flesh and they don't eat they don't eat that type of meat, they only eat fish and any sorts of uh algae algae, if I'm if I'm if I'm not wrong, say the only types of seaweed and any types of fish. Um and when they sense any human flesh, they just bite, and for them, that taste is sour, and so they escape. That's that was the basic explanation

Public Speaking And Sharks For Kids

SPEAKER_00 20:10

I received from my dad. And another one as well is when they eat, they close their eyes, some sort of that. So that's that's what I received from from my dad. But you are able to explain a bit more, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

He's basically got the gist of it. That's a very very wise word from your dad.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Um and and also, sorry, Jack, and also not just Discovery Channel, but also from the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau. He has yeah, my dad has has a huge collection of VHS from Jacques Cousteau, and it's a oh my god, I never thought that he's really cultivated to he's he has from sharks, uh, maritime life of Jacques Cousteau, and also um the space, basically, yeah, the planetary system. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

Yeah, so basically, yeah, basically, to get what you was saying, he's basically right, yes, it the bites of sharks on people they do happen, and when they do happen, we hear about it because it ends up in the news, and we have had a few incidents this year, but they are exceptionally rare and especially unprovoked bites. And the idea that sharks don't actually like human flesh is totally true. When I was cage diving uh in South Africa, we used a tuna head and tuna slick oil as bait, and thankfully, we do not smell like dead fish. So the shark wasn't really that interested in us. The most bites either come from being provoked, or if they're unprovoked, it will more times than not be out of curiosity because a shark doesn't necessarily know what you are, and the only thing it has to test what something is is its mouth, which unfortunately has a lot of sharp teeth in it and therefore causes injury. And generally, what the shark will eat will depend on the species. Most sharks will eat fish or small animals. Great whites will eat seals and very occasionally go for bigger marine mammals. And actually, as your dad alluded to, as he was alluding to before we knew this, he mentions algae and seaweed. Now, it was only in 2018 that there was a new paper that found that a type of hammerhead shark known as a bonnet head was mostly eating seagrass, and we didn't know this until then. So there is absolutely at least one species that is more, we'll say more vegan than messe, sir. And that's quite a fascinating thing, and I suspect there's probably more out there we don't know about.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Well, it's kind of quite of uh diversity, as you said, and anything that is that you say about sharks. Uh for me, I have to completely agree. I cannot disagree on some sort of thing. But I was I'm curious um how many species of sharks exist in the world. Did you have also this question from the audience that you never expected to? I have two questions in one.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yeah, I have occasionally been asked how many sharks there are, and it sort of depends on whether you can't raise or not. Raids can often be called flat sharks, but they're very, very close relatives of sharks. So if we go for your typical sharky shark, there are well over 500 species alive today, and then another 600 or so if you can't raise. So basically, in just about any square foot of ocean, there's probably a shark somewhere nearby. They live everywhere, and they come in

Why Sharks Bite And What They Eat

SPEAKER_03 23:50

all sorts of shapes and sizes, that they don't all look like your typical scary great white shark. In fact, the vast majority of sharks are quite small critters, and on average Joe might look at them and not realize they're a shark.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

And so, uh, besides the the hammerhead shark, the great white shark, and the megalodon, well the ancient, the ancient uh shark, what are the typically known sharks can uh can does the human, the general population uh might may know about it?

SPEAKER_03 24:30

So, what I'll do is I'll go across there's nine different orders of shark, and I'll briefly name some examples from them. The oldest are called the cow sharks, and these are sharks that have these very weird lower teeth, like your six-scale sharks that live quite deep underwater. You have bramble sharks, which are very poorly known species. They're like suction feeder sharks live near the bottom and they get quite big. You have your typical dogfish, just spiky, spidey dogfish, which you will see people occasionally fish out in Swansea, or your lesser sported cat sharks, which are also small species that we get on the coast of the UK. You also get what's called uh angel sharks. They are these flat, almost carpet-like sharks that you can find off the coast of Wales, but they're extremely rare because just about every species is either endangered, data deficient, or critically endangered. We also have uh what we call saw sharks. These are very rare, poorly studied sharks that have these lawn rostrums or like big lawn, almost snap-like appendages on the edges of their faces. And those are five just different groups of sharks. Oh no, the cat sharks are part of what we call the ground sharks, which include things like tiger sharks, your oceanic white tip sharks, your bow sharks. That's the most diverse group of sharks, the ground sharks. And the last other three orders I can think of, we have. Bullhead sharks that are these small nocturnal sharks that live on rocks. We have what we call carpet sharks, which are all sorts of sharks that have sort of vague flat resemblances. That's where you get your epilude sharks that can actually walk on land. You get your gigantic whale shark, is probably the most specialized of the bunch. And then finally, my favorite group of sharks is called the macro sharks. This is an order of sharks that have only 15 species, but they're extremely diverse. You have your great white shark, you have your Makos, you have the Baskin shark and the Megamouth shark that eat plankton. You've got freshers

How Many Sharks And What Counts

SPEAKER_03 26:35

that have these extremely long tails, they whip prey with.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

I mean, especially in United States, the Caribbean Sea, the and even in the Atlantic Ocean. I do remember one. We had uh a shark in Cal. It was a baby shark. I don't know whether species, but I was sunbathing in my hometown in Faru, and there was a lot of people uh by the coastline, and the the lifeguards over there they said you have to keep away because there's a shark coming here, and the people were people were curious and checking around, but I think that baby shark was was distressed, the probably was lost in uh in the family in the moms and the family the the mom and the brothers the sisters, brothers, the mom, the the whole family, and probably was trying to find his way its way home. So have you have you ever any had of any sort of encounter like this?

SPEAKER_03 28:29

I've never had an encounter like that, but I do see it on social media occasionally, and we do sometimes see a shark like near the beach, and yeah, sometimes it is distressed, and then it ends up getting beached. If uh yeah, oh no, it's very rare for a shark just to end up on the beach. It might usually be right in the shallow part, and then if it ends up further off the beach, chances are somebody's pulled it there. Generally, it's hard to say what the shark might have been looking for because uh shark families are not that caring. Sharks do not show parental care. They either lay eggs or lay or give birth to live sharks, and then they just leave them on their way, say, right, off you go. And uh so generally, for sharks, it's every man for himself, basically, apart from very occasionally we get some species that will form groups that we call shivers, and that might be because they're in a mating season, or it might be a search for food. It's hard to say, though, there's so much we don't know about the vast majority of shark species. Yeah, but yeah, I can't say I've had any encounter uh like that. I've been to I've been to beaches, but I've never actually seen a shark at the beach. The the best the closest I would have gotten is maybe in South Africa in Mosul Bay. We did see the carcass of a dead seal uh there, and I don't believe it had been killed by a shark, but the surfers there have are very, very aware that they're sharing this beach with great white sharks. But there's never been a fatal bite in those beaches in Mossul Bay from a great white shark. The only fatality I know of uh was somebody scuba diving at Seal Island where the sharks are known to hang out. And I think that's just a bit of a silly thing to do, as sad as that is.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Yeah, I do believe so. And but uh again, it draws back to that uh human curiosity to see something they did they've they either never or rarely witnessed. I was also interested in knowing about this um this thing, this so I'm not gonna know if it's some sort of a tale or something like that, but I've seen on television that when the mother shark uh is pregnant and is about to hatch the eggs, right? Um there's this some sort of uh what is it called? Umic killing spree from but baby sharks inside the mother's womb when they're about to to to hatch. Is that some is that is that any is that true at all?

SPEAKER_03 31:38

Or so yes, but only yes, but only for a specific group of sharks. So sharks actually one of the things that makes them so interesting and diverse is that they have at minimum three different modes of reproduction, and that's something I don't think we see in even any other vertebrates. But what you're thinking of is a form of reproduction called cannibal viviparity, and this is only seen in macro sharks, and it's basically like you say it is the uh the babies come from the eggs inside the mother's womb, and then the babies that are already hatched will ultimately eat their unborn babies in the womb before they're hatched. We see this in sand tiger sharks, we think we see this in other macro sharks like great white sharks, and it's also thought that Megalodon did this too. Oh. And the reason we think that is because the babies that were born were massive, they were already probably more than three meters long. And to put that into perspective, that's about as big as a teenage or subadult great white shark. And we know this both from the fact that the smallest teeth correlate to that size, but also the vertebrae, we can use rings on the vertebrae, a bit like tree rings, to count how old the shark was when it died. And when we correlate that against how big the shark was, we can back calculate to the first span, which would have been the shark size of the shark at birth, and figure out how big the shark was. And those calculations from that Belgian specimen suggest that that particular shark was about three to three and a half meters when it was born. So, yeah, and the only logical kind of reduction that would allow for babies that big would be that form reproduction where baby megalodons were eating their siblings in the womb.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Wow. So for so this is quite quite an evolutionary uh biology here, where there's huge there's lots of sharks that are about to hatch, but only a few will s will survive. So it's kind of an infanticide inside the mother's womb. So to see, to just to test who's going to who is more able to survive out in the wild.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

Yeah, and that would make megalon

Shark Births And Womb Cannibalism

SPEAKER_03 33:56

what we call a case-selected species. They don't they likely did not produce very many babies. We obviously cannot say for sure how many because we don't have a time machine to go back and watch a megadon give birth, but most likely they were producing quite small litters, but those babies were big and had a good chance of surviving.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Wow, I mean, that's amazing. I have no I have nothing to say about uh about it, and but I most besides that we can learn from it, we can learn about from the megalodon. I was I wanted to to know more about what is this megalodon? What's what is its origins, how long did it survive, and how what can we learn from the megalodon in order to study uh any other shark species?

SPEAKER_03 34:52

Okay, so there's a lot of things that make megalodon so interesting. Uh its origin would have been in a time called the Miocene epoch, which lasts between about 23 million years ago to about 5 million years ago. Exactly when Megalodon evolved, we don't really know for sure, but the oldest fossils have been dated to anywhere between 23 and 18 million years ago. And then the youngest fossils occur at a time called the Pliocene epoch. The youngest Megalodon turf we know of is about 3.6 million years old. So that tells us that Megalodon existed probably for around 20 million years, and that is a really long time for what was essentially an apex predator to exist for, and one species notably. It basically originated from a long line of sharks called the Megatuth sharks, which were these big sharks that only got bigger and started to diversify their diets over time. And we have Ototus obliquists from about 66 million years ago, right after all the non-avian dinosaurs kicked the bucket. And they were probably big fish eaters, and we know this because their teeth are multicusps, they have tiny little cuspers on the side and they have no serrations. But as we get more species, we have at least five Ototus species in total, including Megalodon at the end. And as we go through time, those teeth get bigger, those tiny cusps on the edges disappear, and the teeth become more serrated. And it's possible one of the theories for that is that maybe it's because they were changing their diet and starting to feed more on marine mammals, which first evolved around the time the serrations come about. So this was basically a long line of sharks that was getting with the times and getting bigger to eat more diverse prey. In terms of what people find interesting in Megalodon, obviously it is that gigantic size that stands out most of all. Uh, the most recent uh science that calculates maximum boiling for megalodon estimates about 24 meters or 80 feet, and that is enormous. And even the lower estimates of max and megalodise are already massive. So that is a pretty almost mind-blowing thing to think about. But all the other things about Megalodon are what I find interesting, like the fact that it lived literally everywhere. You can find its teeth on every continent except Antarctica. We think it was also likely a migrator swimming from one end of the ocean to the other. And we think this because it was probably eating a lot of energy by eating whales that would have powered that. And in the last five years, we have started to find teeth right in the middle of the ocean, which might indicate that they were the teeth fell out when the shark was swimming there. Now, in terms of what it is we can learn about other sharks through Megalodon, the number one thing I go to is the effects of extinction, because Megalodon, we know from these clever geochemical studies that have looked into their isotopes, they've shown that megalodon was eating pretty much whatever it wanted, and it was at the very, very top of the food web.

Megalodon Origins Size And Lifestyle

SPEAKER_03 38:05

So this means it had a huge ecological role in regulating prey populations and keeping ecosystems healthy. So when Megalodon became extinct, there was a ripple effect through that, and we see that whales actually get bigger. The biggest species of life today, we have the sperm whale and, of course, the blue whale, they do not evolve until after Megalodon becomes extinct. So a possibility for this is that these whales were able to get bigger and do whatever they wanted without having to worry about a giant shark eating them. And that might indicate that the uh the structure of the food web totally changed from that. And we actually see that today in South Africa, where the great white sharks have massively declined. We uh for a while we thought it was the killer whales that were causing this, and they've certainly not helped, but the bigger killer has actually been uh overfishing and fishing programs that have taken sharks out of the ocean uh only a few at a time each year, but they've done it for so long now that the numbers are so low and we're not seeing any sharks. And what this has done, it's caused smaller sharks and Cape Ferse to explode in populations, and that sort of throws the whole food rev out of balance.

unknown 39:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

So we think that this was occurring on a global scale through Megalodon, and we're starting to see parallels of this in places where we're losing sharks today. And I think that's an important thing we can learn from Megalodon. We what happened after this huge giant went extinct, and what can that tell us about what might happen if we lose today's sharks, basically?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Yeah, probably would give birth to another evolutionary form of new species, new shark species, as it's been happening uh across hist across across the natural history.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Uh in many ways, yes. And when you look at the multiple mass extinction events that make that uh sharks have survived, we do see a pattern that it's generally the smaller, more generalized species that survive. And uh I'd say the biggest threat sharks have ever faced is probably us, and particularly through overfishing, which has caused their global populations to halve in the last 50 years, and now over a third of all shark species are friends of extinction. Yeah. And what we I suspect that whatever happens at the other end of this, there will be some small generous sharks that survive, and sharks will carry on, probably well beyond us. But at the same time, why would we gamble with that and just go out and kill 100 million sharks every year? So I think it's a it's a very fascinating thing to study, and that the loss of Megon can tell us that. And it's something that I tackled in my PhD, one of my final chapters, was about how functional diversity will be affected by the ongoing uh extinction crisis for sharks. I can't say much about the results because the paper is still in review, but uh I I don't think it's a spoiler to say it's not looking good.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Yeah, nah, I believe that anything that goes in extend that is about to get extended is also is done by by us, essentially. Uh it's quite interesting because first of all, uh yeah, sharks um fear us because we are we we are consumers of shark, whether whether we agree or not, and there's we've been talking previously because that because of the fin soup, and also shark meat. I don't know if that's uh also true.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

Uh that's the so I think it's important to specify that while shark fin soup and shao meat are definitely contributing, yeah. Uh it is a bit of a misconception that shark fin soup is the biggest cause of shark declines. It's actually, I would say it's more broadly overfishing, of which shark spinning can be can be part of that to some extent. But generally, it are these enormous, essentially factories on ships, big commercial lawn liners that have these enormous nets that trawl up everything in their path, often including sharks, whether intentionally or otherwise. And I think if listeners want to watch something that demonstrates that, the best thing I can recommend is a film that came out last year called Ocean with David Asenborough. And of course, we have to mention the great David Asenbrugh who turned 100 this year. Last year he did a film talking about the importance of the ocean, and he talked about these commercialized fishing as part of that program, and it showed us just how damaging these trawling nets are. And that is a big, big factor in overfishing, and it ultimately impacts sharks, and it's the biggest driver of their current extinction stress. And I would say that probably applies to a lot of other marine life as well, including whales. Yeah, I imagine so.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

That that that uh mostly in uh we encounter them at the she at the sea at the at the at the beach, at the seashores. They so that's also plays a huge factor. And learning also from the megalodon uh is another interesting factor in order to understand shark behavior, and you just said about with their human interactions, they fear us, and they also they are also curious of us. And you said as well that that curiosity stems from unprovoked bites, and I was interested to to know

Extinction Ripples And Shark Declines

SPEAKER_00 43:50

about it that uh I checked, I was checking this yesterday at the uh the Florida Museum's uh Shark Atalk, and I saw a file that only nine fatal bites occurred, and which statistically speaking is relatively low, so there's no threat. But there is this consistent um claim that we know it already, this consistent claim of the media and any other uh features of pop culture sensation not sensational, but oversensationalized um sharks into shark interactions, whether it's through nowadays AI generated films, uh sorry, uh AI generated videos, uh movies, podcasts, uh, any other sort of um written media and create content creation. I would like to ask why do we still have this reception of media sensationalism and why the general public still think that shocks kill humans, despite it's the contrary.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Uh yeah, and I think it's that's a very complex uh question in many ways. I think it would be naive to say the film Jaws played no role in that, because it was the highest grossing film of all time when it came out, and it basically invented the summer blockbuster. Yeah, but at the same time, it's definitely far too simplistic to blame just one film. I think that's a get out here free card some people play. I think it's far more complicated than that. I think it is down to how our wider media ultimately perceived sharks and the way they portray sharks, and that's probably been going on since long before even Jaws came out. Uh, to some extent, one of the things that Jaws was inspired by was a series of shark attacks uh in New Jersey in 1916. And that was a big, big uh sensational story at the time. Yeah,

Sensational Headlines And Influencer Harm

SPEAKER_03 50:27

because I think three to five people were killed in the space of a week. And when a bright white shark was captured, the killing stopped. So people thought correlation is causation, therefore it was this one shark. And that's probably not true because one of the killings was in a river where it's more likely to have been a bull shark than a white shark that did this. And I think pretty much since then, or maybe even before then, there's been a general instinct that when a shark is written about, they have to use certain key phrases. You will see words like mold or monster, for example. And I think that is somewhat irresponsible. It's an easy way to get clicks these days. You'll see it in basically most newspapers, and there are some I can definitely think on top of my head that do it more. So, like your Daily Mail, for example.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

But even those other newspapers that might be a bit closer to my own political leanings are not innocent of this either, ultimately. So I think it comes down to what will generate the most sensation, and it is portraying these sharks as monsters when really they are complicated, complex, and fascinating animals we don't know very much about. And I think ultimately that fear comes from a lack of understanding of these animals. That's not to say that they can't be dangerous. Of course, they can. If you go out to sea and you poke a shark and try to give it a hug, you are definitely putting yourself in danger if you do that. So, to anyone listening who might want to dive as sharks, do not do what Ocean Ramsay does.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

And don't be an arsehole either. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, like literally arsehole that they go out to the sea, they do diving, and they just want to grab the spine of the shark just to write just to get it right.

SPEAKER_03 52:18

Yeah, that that'll be your Ocean Ramsays, who essentially ride sharks for Instagram clicks and then claim it's conservation, but despite not taking part in any action for conservation. Or when they do, they take credit for the work of indigenous people. I if people want to go to my website, uh, you can actually find a whole essay I wrote about uh the Netflix documentary about Ocean Ramsey called Shark Whisperer last year. And it is it is an absolutely dreadful documentary that nobody's ever watched. It's so misleading in how it portrays this person who has actively harassed scientists who've criticized their behavior and has a very dedicated fan base who claim they care about sharks. And I think to some extent she does. But at the same time, why are you not sharing that uh those videos you're taking with scientists to provide helpful data and actually tell the stories of these sharks? It's it's really got a sense of it's someone selling a brand more than conservation. And I really wish that wasn't how it felt, but it just is. And also riding sharks and trying to pub them is just wildlife harassment. And somebody is going to get bitten if you keep doing that.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Yeah, I think it's just like we we like to test the waters and then see how it goes. With the sharks, yeah, gone.

SPEAKER_03 53:46

Yeah, and ultimately that becomes that risk swing is in the opposite direction where people say you you want to get a right balance. Sharks are not monsters that are together. The data clearly shows that, but they're also not cuddly teddy bears, and you shouldn't go out and try to ride them. So I think the best way to do it is just understanding how important they are for the ecosystem, but also acknowledging and respecting the fact that they are predators, and that means that we should be careful around them. But also, if someone really, really doesn't want to risk in vain by a shark, you can just not go in the water as well.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Yeah. Just don't go into water. I mean, you have you can see sharks in in maritime museums, they're alive in like in in in zoos, basically in maritime zoos, right? And that is the best way, best safe to say, yes, let's see a shark, but we can interact, but interact by distance. No need to just touch the shark, just leave it to the specialists, you know, to study them, which they are more trained and they are more cautious and they understand their psychology.

SPEAKER_03 54:57

Yeah, absolutely. And uh, it's interesting because there has been research showing that if uh someone goes and touches a shark or tries to ride it, it can actually cause distress in the shark. And there's telltale signs that they'll sort of bite at nothing, for example. And in this awful Netflix documentary, we see some sharks doing this, and they play it off as like, oh, the shark's charging her, but actually she's redirecting it. It's like, no, bullshit. That shark is that shark, that shark is that shark is potentially feeling very, very stressed because there are people swarming this animal. And something that they love to show in the documentary, but they never actually talk about is this huge whale carcass where they filmed a really big great white shark, which they falsely claimed was a shark named Deep Blue. It wasn't, it was a totally different big great white shark. But what they never mention is that that dead humpback whale would have been a great source of food for shot. And when that footage came out, idiots, for lack of a better word, swarmed that together to with their cameras and their boats saying, We need to get a picture of the sharks that are here. And that drove all the sharks away, which meant that those sharks lost a really valuable source of food. That's not helping shark conservation.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

No, that is just like uh antagonizing sharks' behavior and sharks' um sharks' behavior and the ecosystem.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

Yeah, absolutely, because you've you've just robbed them of a survival source of food while pretending you're helping conserve them. So, yeah, there's a media has a very, very uh big role to play in how we view sharks. And I think media can be an extremely powerful tool for whichever feeling, both for that fear of sharks or for that fascination of sharks, which I would argue was also caused by Jaws to some extent. I know so many scientists who got into sharks, myself included, in part because they were inspired by Jaws or the character of Matt Hooper, for example.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

And the other documentaries as well. Uh so the ones from David Attenborough, for example, and also those from Discovery Channel that I've seen before.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Yeah, Discovery Channel used to be really one of the highlights for that. They've gone a bit off the rails recently, most infamously, about 12 years ago, or 13 years ago, they had a documentary that claimed that Megalodon was still alive, and there were scientists studying it, and those scientists were played by actors. It was all bullshit. They only had a timely disclaimer that it was fiction, and then they bragged about how many views it got and asked people, do you think Megadon's alive now? And it was nonsense. That's not education, that's just lying.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

But from the video from the the the talks you were featured on the other podcasts that I've seen, you've I think you've said that the the the sharks, the megalodon has gone extinct for over three million years with that stuff? Yes, right. So yesterday I was this is I was dumbfounded. It's like so if what so the megalodon this guy it was a it was an AI generated video, and I've seen tons of megalodons, the giant, the most giant one, plus a smaller one. Obviously, it was generated. They were eating whale, they were eating a great white whale, and he was explaining the behavior, he was explaining how the strategy of the megalodon in order to trap the whale alongside with other fellow megalodons, the big melod megalodon would start eating the whale, but not entirely to conservate its energy, but at the same time getting the whale to bleed it out until until dying. And so the the the rest of the sharks, including the giant megalodon, would eat the rest while the whale while the whale just would lie uh lay down, passed away. And there there was this final question they say, is the megalodon still alive? The guy the the the producer said it's up to you to decide to that, but we can't but there was like this assumption that the megalodon still lives among other shark species. And I was this is some kind of CGI shit, and I've I need to re- I must report this to to Jack and see how and curiously, I saw when was this posted? It was posted yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 59:46

Wow, was so uh what I find so funny about this is that uh what the way you're describing the video, it sounds AI generated. I can tell doesn't it just be a good idea?

SPEAKER_00 59:57

It was totally AI generated and the thumb and the thumbnail was um was a harpoon holding the megalodon with uh an amount of with quantity a big quantity of people around surrounding it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:14

So what's I mean I that to say that question you mentioned it says the end, it's up it's up to you to decide if megalon's still us or not. No, it's not, it's either it's either his or it's different, and it very much is not still I'm gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

I'll send you the video. I'll send you the video. I think I think he said it. I I I want to be 100% sure, but then you take your own conclusions. But I'll I'll send you the video.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

Yeah, so it's interesting because uh there's been like a sort of myth of Megalodon survival for probably decades, and that's probably dates back to people seeing whale sharks hundreds of years ago and not knowing what they were, and people have only Megalodon's

Is Megalodon Alive AI Debunked

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

only been documented as a species for about 200 years, but it's really kicked off in the age of TikTok AI videos, and it's all it's all nonsense. And I think Shark Week has a has a big uh has a lot of explaining to do for their documentary contributing to that. But at the same time, I think people are fascinated by the idea that such a gigantic animal only went extinct about three million years ago. That is really not that long ago when you consider how old some ancient animals are, like dinosaur extinctions occurred about 66 million years ago. That's a long, long time. Yeah, but at the same time, like when people say, I've never I've only ever been asked to my face a couple of times if Mechalodon is could still be alive. And my go-to in my head, I'll never say it to them to their face, but is uh come on, use some critical thinking. And the reason I say that is because if we just stop and think, we're talking about a gigantic shark that lived mostly in coastal waters, and we love the beach and we love filming ourselves at the beach of our phones. We would have seen it by now, yeah, but also the fact that uh with the hundreds of millions of sharks we're killing through overfishing, the largest sharks are most vulnerable, and that means we absolutely would have netted a megalodon by now. There is utterly no reason for any government, for whatever reason, to cover up Megalodon's existence. I have been told in a YouTube comment section I'm part of the uh conspiracy covering up Megalodon. Like, oh, I where's my money? I was like, sorry, imagine thinking that any UK government, present or in the recent past, none of those governments were capable of that. And and that's not even beginning to talk about the coven US government that is gutting protections for wildlife. So, but also if we take the story in the Meg where they lived in the Mariana Trench, well, the life down there is mostly microscopic, and that would not be enough to sustain one megalodon, let alone a whole population. And finally, by far the most common thing you'll see on the internet is oh, but the ocean's only 5% explored. Well, that statistic is not true. It's considerably bigger than that because we have explored the ocean sports shipwrecks for looking for species. And a good example, I think, is in the Indian Ocean, where there's been that enormous years-long search for that missing Malaysian plane where we've learned so much about what the bottom of the Indian Ocean looks like in pursuit of trying to find this plane that they have still not found. Yeah. So ultimately, we have explored more of the ocean than people think, and we've not seen it. It's not there, guys. I'm sorry, I wish it was, but it's not.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

No, we we're probably gonna eventually. I mean, it's obviously more than 5% of the ocean has been explored, and we've been able with our current technology to deep dive into the into the dark of the ocean, and we managed to find the fish lantern, for example. I think it's called like that. But uh there are other species we can. I mean, we've seen there we've seen GoPros, well, more advanced GoPros going down to the bottom of the ocean to film uh any species, yeah, any new species that we never imagined to discover. Uh there could be more evolutionary sharks in the future, we don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

Of course, and that so it's it's important to specify that are there species living deep in the ocean that we don't know about? Yes, of course there are, and that there are going to be new species, probably including new sharks that we haven't discovered yet. We are there are new shark species being written about every year, but that doesn't mean the species we haven't seen are these gigantic whale eaters that were the top fur of the entire ocean. I think it's important to distinguish that. People will point to the coelacamph, which was a fish that was thought to have gone extinct uh in the Cretaceous during dinosaur times, but was then found in the 1930s. And that is an incredible story because any of the fossil record uh is just non-existent in the Cenozoic. But again, that fish was not a gigantic super predator.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:21

Yeah. No, I do think that uh it's been it's been it is amazing. It is amazing, and the more we know about the ocean, the more the better we get informed about the species. And I think we also become uh less fear, less fearful of these all these species, uh including the the current sharks and in the future new sharks to um to get informed and then taught in schools about and saying, oh, uh after all they don't kill, even though they think they still kill, but they don't don't kill.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:02

Yeah, absolutely. It all comes back to improving our understanding of sharks, and uh ultimately we're not gonna care about the conservation of something we don't understand, and most fear derives from the unknown and not understanding. Yeah, so I think yeah, it all builds up to understanding these animals more, and that's sort of the whole reason we do these sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:25

Yeah. Uh I'd like to ask as well how um how was it like to explain about the megalodon in other in other podcasts and your you've done you've talked about and I mean public speaking, but what what what was it like to to talk about the about the megalodon on podcasts on any other YouTube videos before this?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:52

Oh, I I mean I love it. I genuinely cannot get enough of it. It was my childhood obsession, and I never in my wildest dreams thought I would actually get to be studying it and talking about it so much. So yeah, I literally cannot get enough of it, and I really enjoy doing it, and I love adapting the way I talk about to the different audiences in podcasts. I might be talking about it to small children, like I was doing just a couple days ago, the Sharks for Kids. Or I might be to got on a scientific charity podcast, like uh the World of Sharks podcast is run by the Save R. Seas Foundation. So the audience already is very knowledgeable about sharks at that point, or perhaps some of my favorite experiences are either talking to people I already know personally, like yourself, who just want to know more about what I'm doing. Or my absolute favorite podcast to go on is a podcast called Let's Jaws for a minute, where these two these two film nerds are basically talking about Jaws. And I was already a fan of their podcast when they started, and I just wanted I thought, hey, wouldn't it be cool if you had a person, a shark scientist on? So I asked if I could come on, and I've been on several times since. I have an absolute blast doing it, including an episode where we talk about the two meg films, and I get to talk exclusively Megodon. I had an absolute blast doing that. What was the question, one of the questions that you still remember from the hosts that so far as the best question I've been asked, and not to spoil your listeners, is actually one you asked in the pre-scripted questions you sent me. So I'm looking forward to when we get to that. But uh I have been asked all sorts about like what Megalodon ate, and I was once I was once asked, I think, is there any chance Megalodon could have been bright pink? Which and what's incredibly funny about that question, not just the image of it, but we've actually never found a complete skeleton of Megalodon. We actually have no idea what this animal looks like. I've put out a couple of papers uh explaining what we think it might have looked like, and albeit they might be considered a bit outdated now, as there's been some new work by this great scientist named Phil Stearns, who has actually hypothesized that Megalodon might have been longer and a bit skinnier than we thought, and that's potentially a whole new image to Megalodon. And so we think it might have looked like that, but ultimately we don't know until we find a complete skeleton. So that means technically, using the scientific method, we cannot officially rule out that megalodon might have been fighting pink, and that's why I find that question so funny. In all likelihood, it probably wasn't, but we can't say for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

Just like the assumption of uh thinking that the megalodon was actually pink rather than the or the the known uh grey sky and white skin.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:54

Yeah, now in all by all likelihood, it probably was grey and white skin, and probably countershade as like all shots are. Yeah, but it's just so funny that we technically cannot say no for definitive to that question, and that's I think that's why I love that question so much. It's like, damn, you've you've got me. I technically can't definitively say no.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

Oh man, that was that was a good one, and really appreciate it that you've shared that um that answer when you answered to them that about the paint if where the megalon was pink and I also wanted to ask you about the because the megalon, as you said, and I confirmed that they were gone extinct three million years ago, does that also uh help them to live until that time by eating giant whales? Was that uh one of the major factors of their life extinct life extending and their roaming across the world too?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:00

Yeah, absolutely. So uh Megalodon would have needed an enormous amount of energy to justify being that big. And one of my papers that I published during my PhD, albeit it was a side project, not part of my official PhD project, was uh looking, reconstructing the animal where that Belgian spinal cone came from. And we recreated the animal, got its body mass, and one of the things we calculated from that body mass was daily energy requirements, albeit it was based on a relationship in the great white shark. And that suggested that a 16-meter megalodon, so about middle-aged, about two-thirds the size it could have gotten, and it would have needed over 96,000 kilocalories a day on average. And the way it could have met those demands would have either been to regularly eat smaller marine mammals, or basically eat whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted, or to occasionally feed on larger whales. And if it did feed on larger whales, which we know it did to some extent, because we have fossils showing bite marks on these whales from Megalodon. And what that would do is it would consume more energy than it needs, and it would store that energy in its liver, which would allow it to then swim across an ocean without having to eat again. So, yes, eating big whales would have absolutely uh been a key reason for why Megalodon could roam across oceans and live as long as it did, but it was probably also a double-edged sword and likely contributed to its extinction as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

Well, I can I can see that uh it's a great advantage to say uh that shark that Megalodon lived so far lived so long to be gone extinct three million years ago, which for us it's for the c for the general public, it sounds a lot, but speaking from you speaking uh from uh a pyrobiologist perspective, it's not that long ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:03

Yeah, exactly. And the fact we actually still don't know definitively what caused that extinction, but there's a few theories, and one of the main theories is that at the time during the Pliocene, sea levels were constantly changing and ultimately lowered, and what that would mean is less area for megalodon to move around and its coastal habitat. I mean, but that also means less area for its food to move around, less areas for its nurseries where the babies might have been. And what that means is there's less availability of food for megalodon. And right as this was happening, the great white shark was still involved and was probably competing with baby megalodons for the same food. So what that would mean is less food availability plus a bit more competition means that the megalodon can't meet that huge energetic demand, and in many ways is ultimately probably starving to death by the end of its extinction, which is definitely quite a nasty way to go for such an iconic animal. But ultimately, we can't say definitively what caused extinction. That's just one of a number of theories.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:12

Well, uh, it's gonna be quite hard then to find a the definitive uh practical the practical um conclusion of how how how Meg the Hunt of the Megalodon got extinct.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:28

Yeah, unfortunately, uh with most prehistoric animals, it's hard to say what caused extinction. They can't all be as easy as non avian dinosaurs where we know a big rock came from space and killed them all.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:42

Uh now, you know the World Cup is on the way. And have you been seeing a few games or just the highlights?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:51

So it's funny. I'm Actually, not much of a football fan, but I will be watching tonight because Scotland has their first match. I'm uh being originally from Scotland, you will know as well as I that uh Scotland does not qualify for the World Cup that often. We are really not as good as most other European countries. The last time Scotland qualified for the World Cup was in 1998. I was one going on two at the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:19

I was four at the time when that when that happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:22

Yeah. So I am not used to seeing Scotland in the World Cup. So I'm absolutely going to watch the Scotland matches. And I I believe the first one is tonight at 2 a.m. So I will be staying up to watch that. And you know what? There's a sense of national pride behind qualifying the World Cup. I'm not even a football fan, but when I saw the qualified, even I was like, oh, that feels good.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

No, I do no. I I believe Scotland would be would go would run a great campaign, even though they're in a hard in a hard group as well as any other group. They are, yes. But the first game is uh Haiti.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:06

I know they're playing Haiti's nice. Maybe, maybe they win that. I have no idea how good Haiti are, but they're obviously good. They qualify for the world. Yeah. Uh Morocco, yeah, we're probably not winning that. And Brazil, no chance. So they might, yeah. I'd it's it'll be nice just to be there.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:25

I think they there's this possibility if they get in the the best third places they could run through the uh round of 16. But nice. We'll see. We'll see. But I twisting twisting the the actual world cup, then thinking about we are this in this world cup of wild animals. And I was decided, well, since it's the world cup, why not ask Jack? The best 11 you would put up front to to beat the World Cup of Wild Animals. So, what would be your best 11 of sharks and you as the coach? And the Megalodon as the team captain.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:05

So, when I mentioned earlier that the best question I've been asked was one you had come, it was this one I was talking about. And uh I I put I put some thought into this because I don't know that much about football. So uh what I've decided is I've got I've got strategic reasons for choosing the sharks I choose, and hopefully listeners will learn a bit more about these sharks by anyway. So, up front for my for my two strikers, I have the short finned Mako, which is the fastest shark on record. So, my logic is that shark will run fire everything else and score the goal. That that's my and the second striker would be the great white shark, which is also a very, very fast species that has the same annotation as the short finned Mako that allows it to swim so fast and it even breaches, it snatches food uh from under the surface and leaps into the air. So I'm hoping that kind of uh athleticism will aid the great white shark in striking. Uh for my two wing backs to get on the side. I've gone mostly for aesthetic. So I've gone for the black-tipped reef shark, which is one of my girlfriend's favorite sharks, but also a shark you will very often see in aquariums. So I'm thinking that will be the that'll be the player everybody likes, the one everybody recognizes. And then on my other wing back, I have the great hammerhead shark, who the great hammerhead

World Cup Chat And Shark Dream Team

SPEAKER_03 1:18:30

can actually detect prey actually moving around the sea bottom. So I'm hoping that will give him an edge in getting the ball as well. For my three midfielders, I've sort of gone for sharks that it would be fun to watch them tackle other animals. I've gone for the tiger shark, which eats literally anything. I there it can it will eat all sorts of junk that gets thrown into the sea. So I thought the tiger shark can go there and take a bite out of whatever the opponent is. Albeit that tiger shark will probably get a red card for doing so. And I've also gone for the cookie cutter shark, which is one of my favorites, it's this tiny shark that's like a parasite. It will swim up to these huge animals that are much bigger than it and take these perfect circular bites out of them. So that will also be a slightly filthy form of tackling. And then lastly, the fresher shark I was talking about earlier, so it can use that very long tail to whip uh anyone it's tackling, or whip the ball, perhaps, in this case. And finally, for my goalie and my three defenders, I've just gone for raw size. So I've got Megalodon as one of my defenders, and that's the team captain. I've got the Basting Shark, which is the biggest shark we get off the UK, and the second biggest shark today, plus the Mega Mouth shark, which is a bit of a mystery, a bit of a little known shark, but also a big filter feeder. And then finally the gigantic whale shark in go, my logic being just put a big shark and go, and nobody will score.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:03

So I think that would be a solid 11. And I think they would they would advance through through the group stages, and then when it comes to the round of 16 and so and round of eight, quote final semi, and then the final, I think they would they would go on pretty well. And curiously, just while you were talking, sharing about your 11, there is actually this PS2 game. I can't remember the name, I don't have it in memory, but it featured animals, and there was this team that was there was a there was a game, a player that was playing a team of um sea animals. Nice. I think it was dolphins. So presumably the blue whale was in goal, then probably probably the blue whale, blue whale was would be in goal, and then a few sharks just on the on the wings, and then a few dolphins as the main as a lone striker. Well, I mean that's that's the um that's the R11 side.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:05

So rock honor the World Cup and I'm pretty trusted with that, and I I suspect they would do better than Scotland would, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:15

That this also would be an interesting um moment to say that you could choose those sharks to for the uh for the Olympics too. I do remember having uh seeing something like that. There was uh an edition of um the Olympics, but uh featuring animals across the world, and shark and the shark would beat uh any other any other type of fish in uh swimming competitions.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:42

Yes, uh Great White Shark and the short fin Mako in particular are very, very fast species. And I believe Sharkley did a documentary about if a shark could beat Michael Phelps in a race, and I believe it could. Did you see that one? When the no, I didn't I didn't watch I didn't watch it. I know of it, and I guess I didn't watch it because it's not really science, it's just sort of a cool idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:05

Yeah, it's more of a it's more of um is reality show the appropriate words for this.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:13

I would say it's more appropriate than documentary to describe some shot we focus.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:18

Because I know the uh when my obviously Michael Phelps was competing against itself, uh right, uh against himself, sorry, with a a 3D model of a shark side by side. And the only thing that I've seen that they used the technology with his swimming skills with the um I believe it was the great white shark that he was using for the um tail. Right, and that that's what they do. I do remember that one. I've seen it on the television before.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:51

Michael Phelps probably owes sharks quite a lot for a success. Many, many swimsuits used in Olympic swimmers. The fabric and the surface of those swimmers are based heavily on shark skin. Yeah, and because shark skin, shark skin is so hydrodynamic. So actually, I reckon our swimming Olympians probably owe quite a lot to sharks.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:12

Yeah, probably they that's also one of the factors of this uh hunting, this shark hunting for those specific things. But it should it should have been another ways of trying to use the swimsuit or trying to replicate the uh the shark skin through those swimsuits in order to avoid that extinct that shark extinction.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:38

Yeah, you'd want and nowadays we have uh 3D modeling, 3D printing, which can be based on say fossils also dermal denticles or specimens of the dermodels that come from shark skin. So that's probably a way to do it now, and I hope that's taken on board.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:51

Yeah, that maybe in the future, who knows? See, we'll see how it goes. Um, what was it like to be featured on uh Nikita's podcast, The Baffling Biology? I know you told me about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:06

So, yeah, uh that's an interesting one. I would actually put a slight correction to that to say that the mastermind behind Baffling Biology was Lucy Murphy. Uh, Nick was her co-host, of course, at the time, and if the two of them approached me together, they were just starting it. I was actually on their very first episode, and they later had my supervisor Catalina on it as well for a Spanish-speaking episode, which I thought was great. Yeah. Uh, that was a lot of fun to do, and it was nice to do a podcast uh in person, basically. I actually have the photo of that on my website even now. I had a lot of fun doing it, and it was great just to chat about, and there were some really, really good questions from the hosts.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:49

No, I I also watched it and um well her watch it, but there was no video, of course. But I it was interesting to know to know a bit more about sharks and uh also Nikita was on the PhD lounge as well. He was you the the way the way the passion and the way you you are speaking right now about your research about the megalodon uh was quite equal to Nikita's uh predation and uh predation system of mongooses and mirkats. And he was explaining everything from detail to deep from detail how they would attract the mongooses, how the how Mirkats and Mongooses would interact, and yeah, that's that was that that that's a that's an episode that's a talk worthwhile to watch it.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:39

Yes, I've uh I've seen Nick ta Nick talk several times uh about his research at conferences, including in Swansea. And he's got a very, very good way of presenting. He's an excellent presenter. Yeah. And yeah, it does it does him a lot of credit. He's clearly very, very passionate.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:58

Yeah. And I think well I think it's just all the majority of the guests that were here, they they were passionate about their research. And uh not not that I don't have many uh PhDs on STEM, but they will they will be they will come. And uh I do believe that there's plenty of them that I was re had had the pleasure to talk with. Not saying all of them were awful, all of them were good, they have their own different levels of of engagement, but overall I really enjoyed having many so many guests to share their research, but beyond of their research, what made them passionate about studying that specific topic, not just for the sake of the PhD.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:43

Yeah, definitely. And actually, we went to various talking research in Swansea, and ironically, as much as I love seeing STEM talks, my favorite ones were actually uh all the art-space swans. I loved the art space talks and just seeing like why people were so into the subject they went into, whether it was say a part of history or say a culture, uh bit of culture they were interested in, or even there was a PhD in creative writing, I think, at one point, or about like the history of Christianity, for example. I'm not even religious, but I found that so interesting. And that those were some of the best talks I went to, and I think it all comes from a place of passion, basically, and I think it really shows when someone's passionate, and that does wonders, even when I know nothing about that topic. I come away feeling I've learned quite a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:34

Yeah, and I do think that we we always learn, we always learn something, and even though it's not 100%

Honest PhD Advice For Shark Research

SPEAKER_00 1:27:41

but absorbing the whole thing, at least we get something in in that. I think the per the the per the the speaker you were talking about Christianity and these novelties, I think he was on the podcast too, and yeah, I think he was a 3MT winner. So oh wow, yeah, okay, that's yeah, but that was uh three years ago, if I'm if I'm correct. So yeah, I might get in touch with him soon because I'd like I'd love to have him again on the on the podcast and to talk about more any updates of his thesis and any other things that he has has been doing. Yeah, well, Jack, I'd love to continue to talk about Megalodon and any other sharks pieces because I see your your passion is driven and it's right right here. I'm just witnessing that. But and I want to I'd like to ask you, any advice do you have for those who want to do a PhD, particularly about sharks?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:38

Yeah, and that's something I've thought about a lot because I've had friends who have decided they don't want to do a PhD. I've had friends who wanted to do a PhD, but unfortunately haven't yet managed to find their project. And I've had friends who've gone a PhD but haven't had the best experience with it. So there's a lot of different things to consider in going for a PhD. And I think the number one thing is that you have to love what you're doing. You should not do a PhD just because you want to have a PhD or to just say, look at me, I'm a doctor. I don't think that's the right way to do it at all. Now, I it's we can't sugarcoat it. Doing a PhD is very, very hard. You will spend 99% of the time feeling like you are the dumbest person on earth. Yeah. But that but that is okay. That is part of learning. And so I think the most important thing I would say is to have that passion, have that drive for what you're doing. Because you can find a project in anything you're passionate about. But at the same time, it's also important to make sure you know what you're signing up for. And particularly if you're going to a certain university, you should have a good idea about who's who's going to be your supervisor. Because a good relationship with your supervisor can go a long way for making the PhD a good experience. I was very, very lucky and very, very privileged in the supervisors I had, as well as Catalina. I had Dr. John Griffin as my other uh PhD supervisor, and the two of them are a wonderful team, and they helped me in different ways, and they are an absolutely wonderful bunch. And I I do not take for granted how lucky I was to have them because I've seen other people, even in my very own department in Swansea, have not so great experiences. I'm obviously not going to name names, but I've seen uh I've seen people change supervisors because they haven't had a good relationship with their first supervisor, and I've seen people stick it out with that same supervisor and not have a great experience. And there is something to admire about that, but in many ways, if you have a good relationship with that supervisor and also if you're passionate, what you're doing, that is a great combination that will make your PhD really a wonderful experience. And I think I would also advise that be prepared to fail often. Like it will happen a lot in your PhD. There will be setbacks. You will often go through the first year feeling like you've accomplished nothing, and maybe beyond that, but you have done, you will have accomplished far more. So ultimately, my advice for a PhD in general is to have the passion and to do your research about where you're going ultimately or where you want to go, but be prepared to go anywhere abroad, particularly when it comes to sharks, as there's not a lot of opportunities for shark research in the UK that I'm aware of. I know various people in uh shark science from the UK, and many of them can often go abroad. There's some great programs in Australia or in the United States. Well, how long, depending if you want to go to the United States or not, post-Trump, maybe. But ultimately, I would say be prepared to have to go anywhere, which is a tough thing to do. I had to go to South Africa to even get a foot in the door in shark science. But I would also say that for shark-specific PhDs, the same uh advice for a general PhD applies is to keep having that passion and to also do your homework about where you want to go and what sort of things you want to study. Because passion is great, but there's also going to be a lot of hard work involved. And I think with that passion, you can definitely absolutely get through that and take that on the chin. So that's probably the best advice I can give to anyone who wants to do a PhD, including a PhD about sharks. And even in my particular case, I was looking at functional diversity of sharks through time. That was something that I really didn't know very much about when I started. I just liked sharks. But you can keep learning as you're going. You're always going to be learning. And I thankfully was able to learn quite a lot about functional diversity by the time I was finishing.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:57

I think that's that's a solid advice you get. And as you said, uh you keep learning, even during your PhD and after your PhD, of course. As the the only way you keep learning is you have to keep yourself active. Maybe write some write some uh some posts on LinkedIn, for example, just share bits of your research, write articles, trying to come up with a book project too, in order to share that that wisdom you've collected and produced to the general to the general public, academics, non-academics, and so on.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:35

Absolutely. And make sure you've got other hobbies going on during your phone. Don't spend all your time working weekends. Exactly. I I worked a few too many weekends in my PhD. Uh but thankfully, where I would uh I would often go climbing with my friend Matt, and that was a lot of fun too. So make sure you make sure you maintain all your interests and a good support network if you're starting a PhD.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:56

Yeah, and that's that's a that's a fundamental that's a fundamental skill, the networking. But just not networking for networking, it's just act it act it naturally. So do you have any other upcoming projects that you're working on?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:14

So uh yeah, I've I've got a few actually. So I've got uh the last chapter of my PhD is still in review at the moment under in a scientific journal. I'm hoping that will come out this year, but I obviously can't say for sure. And I've got another project in peer review at the moment, which I won't say exactly what it is, but it is about a great white shark, which I'm quite excited about. It was a project that I did not lead. I was asked to come on board and it was a lot of fun. There are a couple of megalodon projects in the pipeline, albeit I'm not leading them, and I'm very grateful for that because the best papers I've ever been involved in are the ones I did not write, in my opinion. So uh that so those are some of the projects I have coming up at the moment. And I will tease that I do have one big project growing under the surface that I don't think I'm allowed to say exactly what it is, but when I can announce it, you will know about it because it'll be all over my social media.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:17

Yeah, that's a nice teasing for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:20

Yeah, it's a it's a big project, it's something I've never done before, and I'm very excited about it. And uh yeah, I'm looking forward to when I can finally talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:31

No, I look forward to, and uh when you announce it, then we are whether you are at uh your early stages and then or in your uh mid-stages, uh let's do it another one. And then we can that'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:43

Yeah, I'd love to do that when it when the when it's out there, that'd be wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:46

Let's let's have another let's have another go for sure, and then you can talk about more more about the megalodon. Any any other curiosities which you don't know about it, debunking these AI generated videos, TikToks, and all of that shit. And so where to where to follow you, any social media, uh your website as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:08

Yeah, so uh if you people want to look at my website to see what I'm up to and how they can contact me, particularly if they want to hire me for speaking opportunities, you can find look at uh wwdrjacacooper.com. Uh, but if you want to follow me on social media, you can follow me at Cooper Paleo. So you can find me on Instagram, you can find me on Blue Sky. Uh you you can find me on Twitter, but I don't really use that anymore because it's basically a Nazi site now. So I would recommend Instagram, it's the best place you want to follow me. Uh, but you can also, if you want to, my email is on my website if you want to reach out about any opportunity, speaking opportunities. So that would be absolutely wonderful. I'm looking forward to hearing from people.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:53

Yeah. So I think this is a great wrap-up. And for the students and graduates out here, uh, make sure to uh reach out to to Jack Cooper. And if you're interested about sharks, you can just send him an email or just uh reach out to his website. He has lots of services to offer, and he's he he's a top one if you want to talk about sharks and the megalodon itself. Okay, so Jack, thank you for your time. It was it was a pleasure to to have you here, and we finally uh we've you finally kinda came up and it's great to to have you. And uh let's do it another one for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:33

Yeah, absolutely, and thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:35

It's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure for me too. And for the students and graduates hearing this podcast, thank you all for tuning in and it's been a pleasure.