SHARK VS SHARK

CretoxyrhinavsGreat white shark

See the size difference first, then compare weight, habitat, diet and what the bite-force evidence can actually support.

ExtinctCretoxyrhina mantelli×LivingCarcharodon carcharias
QUICK VERDICT

Cretoxyrhina is about 1.17× longer by these reference values.

Cretoxyrhina uses a 7 m upper reference, compared with 6 m for Great white shark. 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
ACretoxyrhinaestimated to about 7 m / 23 ft
BGreat white sharkabout 6 m / 20 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.

MeasureCretoxyrhinaGreat white shark
Length referenceestimated to about 7 m / 23 ftabout 6 m / 20 ft
Weight referenceNot reliably reconstructedreported to about 2,268 kg / 5,000 lb
Bite forceNo defensible estimate usedUnknownabout 18,000 NModeled
Timeabout 107–73 million years agoTemperate seas worldwide
DietLarge fishes and marine reptilesFish, rays and marine mammals
03

WHAT SETS THEM APART

More than a size contest.

Length and weight

Cretoxyrhina is represented by estimated to about 7 m / 23 ft; Great white shark by about 6 m / 20 ft. Length is reconstructed from fossils; mass is too model-dependent for a single figure here. Maximum length and mass are exceptional upper-end figures.

Habitat and diet

Cretoxyrhina: Late Cretaceous oceans; large fishes and marine reptiles. Great white shark: Temperate seas worldwide; fish, rays and marine mammals.

Bite evidence

Cretoxyrhina: TuffShark does not scale a bite value without a published species-specific model. Great white shark: A 3-D finite-element model predicted the bite of a very large individual; it was not measured on a living shark.

Fossils change the certainty

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

04

TRACE THE CLAIMS

Sources and limits.

CretoxyrhinaSmithsonian National Museum of Natural History ↗Great white sharkWroe et al. (2008) + Florida Museum ↗How we standardize comparisonsRead the methodology →