Author: Lisa Verhagen

At the bottom of the model’s head, you can see the throat grooves that are so characteristic of baleen whales. These grooves allow the whale to take in a huge gulp of water (the throat expands) and then force the water out through the baleen. The food is trapped and licked off by the tongue. […]

There are many reconstructions of the Megalodon. Often, the creature is depicted as a large great white shark with similarly serrated teeth, but bigger. However, this is inaccurate. Contrary to popular belief, the Megalodon is not directly related to the great white shark. A defining feature of the Megalodon is its short snout. Teeth and […]

An original tooth of Livyatan. This tooth, recovered from the Westerschelde, confirms by its size that a predator sperm whale of the genus Livyatan also existed in the Westerschelde. It is one of only four teeth of the enormous predator sperm whale found in Europe so far.

It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to recover the unique fossils from the Westerschelde. They lie not only 30 meters deep, in the middle of one of the busiest shipping routes in Europe, but are also extremely heavy. To recover them, you need a fisherman with a specialized ship, willing to lose […]

This life-size model of the De Vos Baleen Whale is based on the skeleton displayed below it. Nehalaennia was a baleen whale that fed on small creatures filtered from the water, much like the blue whale still does today. Very different from modern dolphins – like Flipper – that catch and eat fish with their […]

Here lies the skeleton of Nehalaennia devossi, a whale that lived about eight million years ago in the North Sea. Nehalaennia was one of the first baleen whales in the world and an ancestor of the humpback whale and the blue whale, which still exist today. This seven-meter-long skeleton is unique in the world and […]

The king of the sea where Nehalaennia lived was Livyatan melvillei, a massive sperm whale. This sperm whale, with teeth measuring about 35–40 cm long, had the largest jaw ever – much larger and stronger than that of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Unlike a T. rex, this sperm whale could easily bite through a car. In […]

This is a reconstructed jaw of a shark with 160 (!) original teeth. The mako shark lived during the Miocene of Europe, from 23 to 5 million years ago, primarily in coastal waters (shallow seas), and could reach a length of over 6 meters. The many different teeth in this reconstruction were collected by Mr. […]

The largest shark to ever live was the Megalodon (scientific name Otodus megalodon). Megalodon means “big tooth,” and this shark certainly had enormous teeth. Between 20 and 4 million years ago, it prowled the world’s oceans. The Megalodon could reach a length of up to 18 meters, nearly three times the size of the largest […]

Immerse yourself in the marine life of eight million years ago in Western Europe. The exhibition “Primeval Ocean” takes you back in time. It was the era when sperm whales and 18-meter-long giant sharks ruled the seas. What no one could have known back then was that their days were numbered, as the newly emerging […]