Big Meg

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Imagine a ferocious marine hunter up to 20 metres long, weighing twice as much as a humpback whale and ten times more than Tyrannosaurus rex. With jaws that open three metres wide, crammed with 276 serrated fangs, it can bite down with the greatest force of any animal that has ever lived.

This is the Megalodon, and it once existed 3 million years ago. Next to the dinosaurs, wiped out 66 million years ago, it is but a stone's throw into our murky past when monsters reigned. Its name means 'giant tooth' but everything about it is gigantic: its exceptional lifespan, each stalking the ocean deep for more than a century, and its pups, born at more than two metres long, having likely eaten their siblings in the womb.

Marking a milestone in paleontology, in Big Meg acclaimed conservationist, palaeontologist and explorer Tim Flannery and his scientist daughter Emma tell the story of this enthralling great shark for the first time - what we know about where and how it lived, bred, hunted and died. He also shows how it continues to fascinate us. Despite its extinction, the big meg continues to kill a few humans each year: its victims those who dive in murky and dangerous waters in search of its glorious, magnetically beautiful relics.

From the stories we tell about it, to the quest to uncover more of the mystery surrounding it, this is the biography of the ultimate apex predator and a compelling exploration of its awesome grip on the human imagination today.
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'Tim Flannery is the real thing: a man with a gift for lucid exposition, who can really make his subject come alive.' Literary Review

'This man is a national treasure, and we should heed his every word' Sunday Telegraph

'Big Meg is big fun! It's packed to the gills with gobsmacking facts, insightful conjecture, and personal obs from two world-class scientists and explorers. It's a slim volume--but a megaladon of delight for any shark-lover!' --Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus

©2023 Emma Flannery and Tim Flannery (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • Big Meg is big fun! It’s packed to the gills with gobsmacking facts, insightful conjecture, and personal obs from two world-class scientists and explorers. It’s a slim volume–but a megaladon of delight for any shark-lover!’

    Sy Montgomery, author of National Book Award finalist, The Soul of an Octopus

  • Hugely enjoyable. We’re going to need a much bigger boat!

    Dr George McGavin, zoologist and broadcaster

  • Tim Flannery scores again, diving into the murky myth-filled waters surrounding the world’s biggest predator, and surfacing with a breathless true story stuffed with astounding facts and personal experience.

    Lucy Cooke

  • Engagingly written and a real labour of love (down to the tiny fin at the bottom of each right hand page). Give this book to the wannabe palaeontologist in your life

    Mail on Sunday

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