BY CORIE LYNN
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The Sternberg Museum, home to tortoises, rocks, and fossilized creatures of long ago, has become the host of the largest shark to have ever lived.
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Visitors have nothing to fear in visiting the Megalodon exhibit: this prehistoric shark vanished from the oceans two million years ago.
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However, the museum does have its teeth, which are the size of a fist, on display as well as casts of its massive jaws. Also in the exhibit is a life-size, metal frame of the shark.
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\u201cIt\u2019s about sixty feet in length, kind of modeling so it\u2019s about the size of a large bus,\u201d said Rachel Unruh, who works in marketing for the Sternberg Museum, \u201cand you can drive a small car like a smart car in its mouth.\u201d
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According to Unruh, this traveling exhibit was designed to teach visitors the truth about an animal that popular culture has twisted out of proportion.
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\u201cThey wanted to showcase, out of this exhibit, the true facts of Megalodon because everyone has seen Jaws<\/em> or The Meg<\/em> and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God! The shark might still be alive and it might be big and scary,\u2019 and actually that\u2019s not true,\u201d she said. In fact, part of the exhibit shows how the Megalodon exists in pop culture, from movies to clothing. The truth about this shark is that it was the result of its environment. \u201cPart of the reason why Megalodon got this big,\u201d said Unruh, \u201cis during that period of time, [the earth] had a boom of life so you krill and plankton and other small creature producing more.\u201d According to her, this abundance of food is what caused the shark as well as other animals to grow to such a large size. The exhibit also describes other aspects of the Megalodon. This ranges from its place in myths from across the globe to the modern sharks to which it\u2019s related. This includes interactive portions that allow visitors to take a close look at shark vertebrae and teeth. The exhibit also describes how the shark vanished from the world\u2019s oceans. This was in part due to changing water temperatures. Unruh, in discussing how scientists know that the shark is extinct, mentioned that there is no evidence that this animal, once found in waters across the world, is alive. Environment again plays a part in this. \u201cOur environment would not be able to support a shark at this length,\u201d she said. One of the most important points that the Megalodon exhibit makes is about shark conservation. It serves as a way to educate people on the truths about these fish. \u201cI think their biggest takeaway is I hope they learn that sharks aren\u2019t as scary as people think they are,\u201d Unruh said. For those interested in learning more about sharks and the Megalodon, the Sternberg\u2019s exhibit will be open until September 2, 2019. BY CORIE LYNN The Sternberg Museum, home to tortoises, rocks, and fossilized creatures of long ago, has become the host of the largest shark to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":45617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,11,3403],"tags":[11974,69,106,12650,103,1495,290],"class_list":["post-45616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-news","category-sternberg-news","tag-corie-lynn","tag-fhsu","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-sternburg-museum","tag-tiger-media-network","tag-tigermedianet","tag-tmn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_3810.jpg?fit=4032%2C3024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45618,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45616\/revisions\/45618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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