A story in circulation today claims that a 15-ton megalodon – a prehistoric shark – was discovered off of the coast of Pakistan. Is this story true or false? The Story is Fake. It comes from the fake news website World News Daily Report. In the fictional story, we read that a 15-ton megalodon – a long-extinct shark – was captured by fisherman off the coast of Pakistan. The false story describes the creature as the largest shark ever captured, weighing in at 15.6 tons (about 31,200 pounds). The story also mentions Smithsonian paleontologist Jeff Mayor and a local marine biologist by the name of Rajar Muhammar. A cursory Google search for these two men yields on the fake report by World News Daily Report. World News Daily Report This is not the first fake viral story to originate from this fake news website. Back in late July, a report that a Japanese whaling crew had been killed by a school of killer whales also heavily circulated. The Photo A photo included with the story can be found from reports dating back to 2009. The shark seen in that photo was described as 700kg (about 1550 pounds), nowhere near the size described in the World News Daily Report [...]
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