Alas, the time has come for the end. After an amazing week at the BVI we’re goijg to go home. Today was a nice change of pace; we did some community service for Visar. I was in charge of washing various garments and other things that simply needed to be cleaned. As much as I loved scuba diving it felt good to do something new. After we finished that we went snorkeling, where David and I found a cave which I declared Grunt’s Grotto due to the group of grunts that lived there, but otherwise we simply enjoyed the biodiversity. I got cooked on my arms, despite my rashguard being UV protectant. We then showered and headed out to an amazing dinner where we capped off everything we covered this entire week. A nice ending to an amazing week.
During the most part of the dinner I contemplated the possibility if C. megalodon being alive in the hydrothermic vents, as is speculated by many scientists. I reached the conclusion that this phenomenon is simply impossible. First, Megaladon died because of falling sea temperatures, a period of glaciation because of the closing of the Central America Seaway, which lead lots of prehistoric cetaceans to go extinct and the ones who lived moved north towards the poles (made possible by their blubber) which cut off their primary food source. Also, competition arose in the form of raptorial orcas. Now at this point Megalodon supposedly descended into the depths, but that makes little sense. Megalodon was a pelagic fish and looking at its diet it probably never descended into the darkness; it mainly ate marine mammals. Also, it gets too cold for megalodon, despite having internal body heat, as it descends right before the hydrothermic vents. Also, how would Megalodon have known about the hydrothermic vents? And how would they have transitioned between hypercarnivorous apex predator to chemosynthesizing apex predator? Surely there wouldn’t have been enough food down there and so the only alternative would be to get energy via chemosynthesis. And finally, assuming all that actually happened, wouldn’t Megalodon have evolved so drastically it wouldn’t be considered Megalodon.
Just a few thoughts, and as much as I bash the idea of Megalodon being alive I love do love Megalodon and paleo-marine biology. My rant is now over.
Dive BVI made this trip incredible, so much that hopefully if Jesuit does this again I’ll see if I can help in any way.
Truely am amazing trip.
