The Spanish Oceanography Institute has discovered a large deposit of fossils of the largest marine predator that ever existed, the megalodon, a shark that became extinct two million years ago.
The deposit was found at the foot of an undersea mountain some 2,000 metres deep in waters off the Canary Islands during an ocean research campaign, the IEO said on Monday in a communique.
Those responsible for the discovery call this "an event of great scientific significance".
These fossils "show that the biggest marine predator of all time lived, hunted and reproduced in these waters during that era", a shark that grew to be 20 metres long and weigh 100 tonnes.
For the kind of teeth it possessed, scientists think it fed on large prey like whales, dolphins, seals and other marine mammals, as well as on large fish and turtles.
