Scientists think the fossil teeth of the megalodon, the largest predatory shark that ever roamed the ocean, holds clues into how the shark behaved during prehistoric climate changes.

William Paterson University professors Michael Griffiths and Martin Becker have begun to research the chemistry of the ancient shark teeth to reconstruct shark body temperature and dietary behavior as well as seawater chemistry dating back 15 million years.

The researchers are hoping to answer if the extinct species was endothermic — able to produce its own heat — or not.

Becker, who is a paleontologist by trade, said an evolutionary detail such as how the shark regulated its body temperature would shed more light onto what caused the demise of the megalodon many millions of years ago.

The megalodon is thought to have grown to 60 feet and exert a crushing bite — with force up to 41,000 pounds of pressure — that enabled them to crunch bones and snack on large marine animals such as whales. The fossilized teeth, which have been recovered in many coastal regions, measure up to 7 inches.

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Becker and Griffiths are using teeth gathered in California, Japan, North Carolina and Western Europe, which they will send to labs to find out the ratio of carbon to oxygen in the isotopes preserved in the enameloid.

The species lived between 2.6 million to 23 million years ago and several hypotheses have been floated for its extinction, including a cooler ocean during the ice ages, loss of nurseries from lower sea levels and competition for food with ancient, now also extinct species of killer whales. See a documentary on whales in the above video.

"That's one idea for sure. I'm more of the opinion that the 'Megs' inability to move poleward limited its access to its food source whales that could range more northward into colder water," said Becker.

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Their probe, which earned a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, aims to discover the historic relationship between environmental temperature, ocean chemistry, and the internal body temperature, evolution, and habitat of various marine vertebrates across two important geologic time periods: the Mid-Miocene between 15 million and 17 million years ago, and the Pliocene between 2.5 million and 5 million years ago.

"These periods of time encompass some of the largest oceanographic and climatic changes in the earth’s history," said Griffiths, a geochemist and paleoclimatologist.

The researchers are also hoping to be able to compare the behavior of the megalodon to that of sharks today.

The researchers say the world's oceans are currently warming up at an extremely rapid rate that is leading poleward habitat shifts of many marine organisms, including sharks.

These habitat shifts result in many challenges, such as the management of fisheries' resources, as competition among species changes and new ecosystems are developed.

Many sharks and tunas species today are able to produce their own heat, including great white sharks and bluefin tuna, two of the largest of their species.

Dan Radel: @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com