When the writers of the movie “Shark Attack 3: Megalodon” decided they needed a book on sharks to set the stage for their newest b-flick, they didn’t make up a phoney professor and write the necessary lines on their own. Instead, they used a very real book written by a very real Manhattan based marine conservationists – and slipped in fake pages to make it sound as though the writer of this 1991 bestseller believes that C. megalodon is still around. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t sit well with shark expert Richard Ellis who disliked seeing an adulterated version of his book “Great White Shark” turning up on the big screen. Ellis is now suing the film’s distributor Lions Gate Entertainment, asking for a halt to the film’s distribution along with $150,000 in damages.

Who is C. megalodon?
Megalodon was an enormous shark that died out long ago. The oldest known remains of this species are about 18 million years of age and the shark is believed to have gone extinct in the Pleistocene epoch, probably about 1.5 million years ago. It is the largest carnivorous fish known to science. The maximum size of this prehistoric shark is a controversial subject, but most experts agree that it could reach a length of at least 18 metres (59 feet) and weigh at least 70 metric tons.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Elasmobranchii
Order: Lamniformes
Family: Disputed; either Lamnidae or Otodontidae
Genus: Disputed; either Carcharocles or Carcharodon
Species: C. megalodon