The 400-Year-Old Shark
A slow, half-blind shark of the Arctic may live for 400 years, longer than any other animal with a backbone.
What was reported
The Greenland shark lives in the cold, dark waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic, growing to around 6 metres or more. It swims extremely slowly, many have parasites clinging to their eyes, and its flesh is poisonous unless fermented, as in the Icelandic dish hákarl.
In 2016 scientists radiocarbon-dated the lenses of the eyes of 28 sharks, tissue that forms before birth and never changes. The largest was estimated at around 392 years old, give or take 120 years.
Explanations offered
Its cold home and slow metabolism seem to explain its long life; females are thought not to mature until they're about 150. It's the longest-lived vertebrate known, so a shark swimming today could have been born before the 1700s.
- When
- Age revealed in 2016
- Where
- Off east Greenland, North Atlantic
- Witnesses
- Scientists and Arctic fishermen
- Status
- Confirmed
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