AI-generated image passed off as 'living megalodon discovered by German fishermen'
- Published on December 25, 2024 at 04:18
- 3 min read
- By Najmi Mamat, AFP Malaysia
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"Megalodon is still alive!" read part of a Malay-language Facebook post published on November 26, 2024.
"In the early 20th century, German fishermen aboard the Seastorm made an extraordinary discovery in the North Sea: a living megalodon, a creature believed to have gone extinct millions of years ago. As a large shadow surrounds their boat, the fishermen face a formidable challenge."
The black and white photo shows a group of people gathered around a ship with a huge shark hanging from a pulley.
According to Britain's Natural History Museum, megalodons, the largest predatory sharks ever to exist, inhabited the world's oceans over three million years ago and could grow to three times the length of an adult great white shark (archived link).
Misinformation claiming megalodon sharks are still alive today has proliferated online, particularly after an infamous Discovery channel "documentary" that aired in 2013, featuring made-up stories of sightings and attacks (archived link).
The same image was shared in Facebook posts around the world, including by accounts based in Indonesia, Egypt and the United States, as well as on Instagram.
Some Facebook users left comments indicating they believed the image was genuine and that megalodon sharks still exist.
"This is (only) the pup.. Its parents are still alive and will attack humans one day," one Facebook user commented.
"This is not impossible," another wrote.
However, the gigantic shark was extinct by the end of the Pliocene era, about 2.6 million years ago, according to the Natural History Museum. While it is not known exactly when the last megalodon died, the latest evidence suggests it was at least 3.6 million years ago.
Reverse image and keyword searches also found the circulating image was first posted by an account that shares AI-generated content.
AI-generated content
The image was shared on Instagram by an account called "thefantasycreatures" on January 24, 2024, alongside the same fictional story about German fishermen capturing the shark and hashtags for "artificial intelligence", "stable diffusion", "Dall-E3" and "Midjourney" (archived links here and here).
Dall-E and Midjourney are artificial intelligence software that can generate pictures using language prompts.
The account's bio states it "designs" images of fantasy creatures using artificial intelligence.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in the false posts (left) and the Instagram post (right):
Additionally, the "living megalodon" images featured several visual inconsistencies, such as distorted faces, the lack of pupils in a man's eye, and a headless body, indicating the image was AI-generated, as highlighted in the screenshot below:
Visual inconsistencies are one of the main giveaways that an image is fabricated, according to AFP's guide to spotting AI-generated images.
AFP has previously fact-checked AI-generated pictures of animals shared as real photos, including a giant octopus and a gigantic axolotl.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
