SHARK VS SHARK

Common threshervsCretoxyrhina

Length, weight and bite evidence—plus context from a human, city bus and blue whale. Every number below carries its uncertainty with it.

LivingAlopias vulpinus×ExtinctCretoxyrhina mantelli
QUICK VERDICT

Common thresher is about 1.09× longer by these reference values.

Common thresher uses a 7.6 m upper reference, compared with 7 m for Cretoxyrhina. A clean mass ratio is not shown because at least one weight is not reliably reconstructed.

01

ON THE SAME SCALE

Human. Bus. Whale.
Pick your reference.

RELATIVE LENGTH · 0–24 METERS
ACommon thresherreported to 7.6 m / 24.9 ft
BCretoxyrhinaestimated to about 7 m / 23 ft
REFAdult human1.8 m · about 80 kg

Length bars use upper comparison values and do not show body depth, tail proportion or typical adult size. A long thresher tail, for example, does not equal whale-shark body mass.

02

THE NUMBERS

Side by side.

MeasureCommon thresherCretoxyrhina
Length referencereported to 7.6 m / 24.9 ftestimated to about 7 m / 23 ft
Weight referencerecorded over 340 kg / 750 lbNot reliably reconstructed
Bite forceNo dependable maximum foundUnknownNo defensible estimate usedUnknown
TimeTemperate and tropical open watersabout 107–73 million years ago
DietSchooling fishes and squidLarge fishes and marine reptiles
03

WHAT THE DATA CAN SAY

Size is not the whole animal.

Length and weight

Common thresher is represented by reported to 7.6 m / 24.9 ft; Cretoxyrhina by estimated to about 7 m / 23 ft. Length comparisons can exaggerate body bulk because the tail is exceptionally long. Length is reconstructed from fossils; mass is too model-dependent for a single figure here.

Bite evidence

Common thresher: Its hunting performance cannot be reduced to jaw force. Cretoxyrhina: TuffShark does not scale a bite value without a published species-specific model.

Living versus extinct

At least one animal is known from fossils. Fossil length, weight and bite estimates depend on which living analogues and scaling equations researchers choose.

Ecology changes the matchup

Much of its length is tail, which it uses to stun prey. Teeth and rare skeletal material point to a large, fast lamniform predator.

04

TRACE THE CLAIMS

Sources and limits.

Common thresherFlorida MuseumCretoxyrhinaSmithsonian National Museum of Natural HistoryHow we standardize comparisonsRead the methodology →