No. 006 MON 05 OCT 2026

One Greenland shark was probably born before the United States existed.

The Greenland shark — North Atlantic & Arctic

Greenland sharks have no hard structures that are normally used to age fish. So in 2016, scientists radiocarbon-dated the core of their eye lenses, tissue that forms before birth and never changes. The largest shark in the study was estimated to be 392 years old — and, with high probability, at least 272. That places its birth before 1776.

Why it’s interesting

Fig. 006 Layers laid down one at a time, like an eye lens growing around its core.

The longer version

The team, led by Julius Nielsen, examined sharks caught as by-catch. Carbon from mid-twentieth-century nuclear bomb tests acted as a time marker: sharks whose lenses contained it were born after the 1960s; the rest were older, and their ages were estimated from their size.

The result made the Greenland shark the longest-lived vertebrate known — an animal that may only reach maturity after 150 years.

One Greenland shark was probably born before the United States existed.

Why it’s interesting

The longer version

See how we got here

Sources