Every time I watch MonsterQuest, I'm reminded of why I like Destination Truth so much more.  You know the old saw, "If you hear hoof beats in Central Park, think horses, not zebras"?  When MonsterQuest hears hoof beats, it thinks "Unicorns!"

In this episode from last season, MonsterQuest travels to the Baja Peninsula to track down rumors of a giant black shark local fishermen call "the Black Demon."  Despite the fact that the legend of the Black Demon matches whale sharks and great white sharks perfectly, MonsterQuest speculates that this could be a Megalodon on the loose.  See what I mean?

Megalodon was the biggest shark ever to roam the oceans.  By size comparison, you would be the same proportion to a Megalodon as a Fun Size Snickers Bar is to you.  Nom!  Megalodon preyed primarily on whales, which it attacked by either crushing their rib cage in its jaws, or by ripping off their fins so that they were unable to swim away.

The Black Demon has a small handful of characteristics.  It is very large (up to 60 feet long in some reports), it is black, it thrashes its tail at the surface, and it eats seals - either swallowing them whole, or leaving giant bite marks on their flanks.  (This bit about swallowing seals whole… who would notice?)

Whale sharks are very large, black, and often seen at the surface.  They are the world's largest fish, and feed exclusively on plankton.  Whale sharks are seen at the surface because they follow the plankton blooms up to the sunlit surface of the ocean.  

Great white sharks are known to patrol the Sea of Cortez, as are orca whales.  Both animals will strike at seals, and can leave huge bite marks on "the one that got away."

The investigation in Baja is intertwined with laboratory scenes regarding the analysis of a Megalodon tooth.  The tooth was dredged up by the HMS Challenger at the turn of the century.  Scientists in the 1950s dated the tooth at being only 10,000 years old, despite the fact that Megalodon is assumed to have gone extinct approximately 1.5 million years ago.

Unfortunately, the tests performed by the Natural History Museum of London were inconclusive.  There was not enough nitrogen in the tooth to perform carbon dating.

Meanwhile, in the Sea of Cortez, there may well be Megalodon sharks remaining in the world, but these guys sure aren't going to find it any time soon.  Their strategy for finding the elusive animal is to fly around in a spotter plane while using paramilitary radio jargon like "It's go time" and "We're oscar-mike that location."  

The team tips its hand early by not taking the least bit of precaution with the divers, who plan to splash into the water beside the Black Demon without chain mail or a diving cage.  I'm not sure how this could even be called a "hunt."  One of the divers also comments that a whale shark weighs "tens of thousands of tons," which is off by an order of magnitude (whale sharks weigh tens of thousands of POUNDS, being about 47,000 pounds).

At the end, MonsterQuest proves fairly conclusively that the local fishermen have been spotting whale sharks.  One wonders how professional fishermen can be so ignorant on the topic of marine biology, but I suppose they aren't hooking many whale sharks.  (What would you use for bait?) Until someone reels in better proof, we will have to continue to rely on movies from the Syfy Channel for our Megalodon fix.