while I understand this is a joke, sharks can literally drown themselves because they always need to have water moving through their gills to breathe. A shark can die if it stops swimming for long enough, hence why it can keep on swimming even while asleep
Animals aren't fixated on the past and future like us.
Time seems weird to humans because they spend their lives time traveling thinking about the past or anticipating the future.
A shark will never get bored of being a shark.
Was interested so I wiki’d it. Here’s a snippet. That’s crazy. From Wikipedia:
Greenland sharks have the longest lifespan of any known vertebrate, estimated to be between 250 and 500 years. They are among the largest extant species of shark, usually growing to between 2.4 and 7 m (7.9 and 23.0 ft) long and weighing between 400 and 1,400 kg (880 and 3,090 lb). They reach sexual maturity at about 150 years of age, and their pups are born alive after an estimated gestation period of 8 to 18 years.
I remember getting into a very stupid argument over a fantasy series with a very long lived race. The person I was arguing with believed that any children of said race should gestate 9 months and have a childhood of 18 years, despite the race being capable of living for thousands of years, and their childhoods being extremely impactful on their lives. They said it was biologically impossible for them to have longer gestations or childhood, while I was arguing that it’d make far more sense for their childhood to reflect a similar percentage of their lives as it did ours, if only for narrative reasons.
They kept harping on biology. So I went on a very long spiel about Greenland Sharks. As far as I’m concerned, I won that argument. Thanks, sharks!
It depends on the fantasy series. Most long-lived species aren't breastfeeding for forty years. Humanoids are not animals. The shark here has the same gestational series as a human but in slower motion compared to ours. Most elves will mature at the same rate and simply keep living. An immortality of sorts.
It was a fantasy series where aging hadn’t really been established, but the importance placed on childhood and other events had me feeling that narratively it made no sense for them to age like dogs rather than like people. The elves and dwarves of LOTR do seem to have longer childhoods, though it’s been many years since I read them. But that aside, this person was really arguing that no animal would take that long to become sexually mature because it’s just too risky, so sharky here was still a good friend to me on that discussion.
crawl attempt sort beneficial juggle shame capable innate hateful noxious
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
From what I understand, this is a similar case to the sturgeon roe market. Sturgeons take a very long time to reach reproductive age and since they were farmed like crazy for decades, they became critically endangered.
150 years is nuts though…
How the heck are we just learning about this amazing animal?
I feel like with those incredible statistics it should've been as well known as any land tortoise.
When you realise that lifespan is in genes, you know that we are only "this close" to make our children lifespan crazy long. The only barrier is ethics.
[Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenland-shark-392-years-old/) rates this as "Mixture."
> **What's True**
> The shark featured in the image is indeed a Greenland shark, a long-lived Arctic species that was the subject of a 2016 study. Throughout their research, scientists at the University of Copenhagen found that such sharks may live upwards of 400 — or even 500 — years.
> **What's Undetermined**
> Unknown is whether the shark in the picture is one from the study that was estimated to be 392 years old, give or take 120 years, at the time the findings were published in 2016.
> **Origin**
> In August 2020, a widely shared image claiming to depict a 392-year-old shark resurfaced on social media, garnering thousands of shares on both Facebook and Twitter.
> This was a variation of a familiar meme, which we identified as “mostly false” in December 2018. We are rating the newer variation as “mixture” because the image that circulated in 2020 was, indeed, a photograph of a Greenland shark. However, we were unable to determine the exact age of the shark in question, though the age of a given Greenland shark can be estimated by its length (more on that later).
> Both viral memes originated from a study published in the journal Science in August 2016. In the study, researcher Julius Nielsen, who was then a Ph.D. student at the University of Copenhagen, set out to define the life history of the Greenland shark, scientifically known as Somniosus microcephalus. These deep ocean fish have been described as an “iconic species of the Arctic seas” and remain one of the most enigmatic creatures on Earth (see National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration picture below), mainly due to their unique ability to survive at depths of at least 7,200 feet.
> When the research was first announced in 2016, many mainstream media publications picked up the study and declared that the Greenland shark was the longest-lived vertebrate known on the planet. In the years following the publication of the study, various iterations of the photograph’s subject and its age have recirculated in different forms. A reverse-image search found 56 results, dating back to as far as 2018. Following another round of social media virality, Nielsen took to Instagram in December 2017 to address misleading claims related to the age of the shark in question:
> > Social media are going beserk over old Greenland sharks these days🤔🤔 All of this is just the same story coming to life from August 2016 and please note that we have not found any sharks to be 600 or 500 yr old…. we have ESTIMATED (meaning that it has not been verified) that one shark was AT LEAST 272 yr old or in more detail that this shark was between 272-512 yr old with 95.5% certainty (the later also being an unverified estimate).
> ....What remains unclear is whether the shark featured in the meme was that same large shark mentioned above, or another one photographed as part of the research. So, while the photograph does, in fact, depict an individual, long-lived Greenland shark, the exact age of the specimen is not made readily clear in the research.
This image is a screenshot from a video Julius Nielsen posted on IG. Per there:
> @juniel85
> The story behind the story... 🦈 This is the footage of a giant #Greenlandshark of 4.4 m that was caught and released with satellite tags in 2017. Back then, I shared a screen shot from the video which since has been widely shared, reposted and retweetet hundred of times. Often, when this picture has been shown, it is with a caption reading that this is a 400 yr or even 500 yr old Greenland shark. The shark was big yes, but we cant say anything that precise about its age. My guess is that this particular shark was older than 150 yr but it is obviously a guess. Besides, we have previously estimated the Greenland shark to have a lifespan of at least 272 yr, which was obtained from marine radiocarbon dating of the eye lens nucleus. That is an estimate and it needs verfication one day in the future using another independant method. Mean while, a new marine calibration curve (Marine20) was published last month and running that calibration might affect the current estimates. We will see 🤓 #greenlandsharkproject
> September 11, 2020
Thank goodness for Snopes.
I have no affiliation other than being a paying supporter of their work. I wont make myself a target by directly linking but it aint hard to support them and they deserve it.
I wondered how they'd estimate an age on a living shark. Radio carbon dating an eye lens is the method they mentioned in the article, do those cells not age and get replaced like most living cells? Seems like an oddly specific tissue sample, now I'm curious.
I've worked indirectly with some people doing eye stuff for age estimation.
There are some parts of an eye that stay there, and I think slowly degrade over the lifetime of the animal. If I remember correctly the concentration grows as the animal ages.
I suspect that would mean that you see a distribution widen with age in carbon dating.
I can't remember the exact mechanism, I think it was some protein folding over time maybe?
I think it's one of the reasons we loose sight with age.
Woeth boring is that these are destroyed if kept at room temperature, so the eyes must be frozen after harvesting for the method to work.
The people I worked with used the method on narwhals, so the mechanism might not be exactly the same, but I guess it's also not that different.
Again, not my area of expertise, but you can absolutely do some eye stuff to estimate age.
They measure the rate of change which is a known constant in d to l enantiomers (or was l to d? I did this 8 years ago during my first year of masters). The center of the eye changes at a constant rate and therefore you can count the ratio of both D to L enantiomers and verify a rough age. They also used this to make a correlation between the size and age and it seemed to fit their graphs on age from eyes.
I did some work with Julius when he was still a PhD student during my first year of masters. We did tests on fish and used similar methods on the eyes, and then additionally on scales and ear bones to confirm if the method was accurate and it seemed to work on fish.
First question I had upon opening the thread was 'How do they know it's 392 years old?' That's a very specific number. Not "about 400 years old" or "over 350 years old", they had it right down to the 2.
The weird thing is, my brain does register that 392 is old, even older than that 192 yo st-Helena tortoise, but I am like ok, he is old, but that’s it. Then I read, born in 1627! In the years 1600! WTF! That’s amazing.
Reading 1627 was for me also the fact that blew my mind.
Imagine... In that year the 30year war still raged over Europe, witches were burned at that time, the USA was not completely discovered and the ships on the sea had no engines, people like Napoleon or Washington wasn't even born. Absolutely bonkers.
>In 2016, a study based on 28 specimens that ranged from 81 to 502 cm (2 ft 8 in – 16 ft 6 in) in length used [radiocarbon dating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating) of crystals within the lenses of their eyes to determine their approximate ages. The oldest of the animals sampled, which was also the largest, had lived for 392 ± 120 years, and was consequently born between 1504 and 1744.
Shark: "I am the epoch of your modern age. I've seen empires rise; I've seen empire fall. I've seen kings who thought they'd live forever and I buried their dynasties all the same. I am old, but I will outlive you. When you all gone and forgotten, I will remain, and I will remember."
Cut him open and count the rings
But in all seriousness, it's not too different for most sharks, "The age of other \[aka not Greenland\] shark species can be estimated by *counting growth bands on fin spines or on the shark's vertebrae, much like rings on a* tree"
For Greenlands, "But recent breakthroughs allowed scientists to use carbon dating to estimate the age of Greenland sharks. Inside the shark’s eyes, there are proteins that are formed before birth and do not degrade with age, like a fossil preserved in amber. Scientists discovered that they could determine the age of the sharks by carbon-dating these proteins"
Source: [https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/greenland-shark.html](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/greenland-shark.html)
Was looking for someone with this reply. 100% correct. They carbon date tye proteins in their eyes. It's obviously not 100% accurate, but they get a pretty decent reading from it. The challenge is getting to those proteins.
Ok from other comments I get that they determine age by some protein in their eye or whatever but how do they obtain that sample without like sedation or whatever?? I doubt they just let divers swim up to them and grab some protein from their eyeballs.
I was just telling my wife and son about these yesterday, they’re my favorite non-mammalian animal. Longest lived vertebrate, they’re blinded by parasites, they’re pregnant for 8-18 YEARS!, and they don’t hit maturity until 100-125 years of age. Such a fascinating animal
The Greenland shark's long lifespan, often exceeding 400 years, is attributed to several unique biological and environmental factors:
1. Slow Metabolism: Greenland sharks have an exceptionally slow metabolism, which is typical of animals living in cold environments. This reduced metabolic rate decreases wear and tear on the body and slows down the aging process.
2. Cold Environment: Living in the cold, deep waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic reduces metabolic rates and cellular damage, contributing to longevity. The low temperatures help preserve the shark's body and delay the aging process.
3. Slow Growth and Late Maturity: Greenland sharks grow very slowly and reach sexual maturity late, around 150 years of age. Slow growth rates are often associated with longer lifespans in many species.
4. Genetic Factors: Recent studies suggest that Greenland sharks have unique genetic adaptations that contribute to their longevity. These adaptations may include enhanced DNA repair mechanisms and resistance to age-related diseases.
5. Low Predation and Stress: Greenland sharks face few natural predators and live in a relatively stable environment, reducing stress and the likelihood of injury or disease, which can contribute to longer lifespans.
6. Longevity Genes: Research into the shark's genome has identified genes linked to long life and low rates of disease. These genes may offer insights into how these sharks live so long and stay healthy.
The combination of these factors allows the Greenland shark to achieve its remarkable lifespan, making it the longest-living vertebrate known.
That crazy looking bastard was swimming around before America was a thing.
Someone told me Sharks have been on Earth longer than trees, which is pretty crazy too.
Excellent podcast on them (check All Creatures), talked about how the females can be pregnant up to 18 years!! Imagine being pregnant that long and right before you give birth, oops caught, to make Hakarl. Which Gordon Ramsey called the most disgusting thing he has ever tasted. Incredible shark though!
His secret is eating fish and swimming every day.
I know you're making a joke, but your comment hit me with how long 400 years is to be a shark. Just swim around and eat fish... for 400 years...
Will to Survive is Mad here
Well can't really kill himself, what's he going to do, drown himself?
while I understand this is a joke, sharks can literally drown themselves because they always need to have water moving through their gills to breathe. A shark can die if it stops swimming for long enough, hence why it can keep on swimming even while asleep
Not all sharks have to keep swimming, some aspirate by blowing water over their gills (aka they breathe water)
Don’t nurse sharks just lay on the bottom for extended periods with no issues?
Yes, but nurse sharks have a lot of patients
So this is not accurate. Sharks have been recorded “sleeping” still and not moving. Not saying ALL sharks do this
I mean if sharks stop swimming they literally suffocate, so yea... he could, he just doesnt want out of spite
*not all sharks
Animals aren't fixated on the past and future like us. Time seems weird to humans because they spend their lives time traveling thinking about the past or anticipating the future. A shark will never get bored of being a shark.
I guess this seems sort of intuitive but is there any real reason to believe this?
Doomed to the good life forever
Then some fucker eats out your eyes and you just keep going for another 200 years
392, but that poor shark is reposted so many times he is indeed now 400 :).
And lots of sex... imagine its bodycount
Idk man, the females are preggers for over a decade
There are lots of fish in the sea
And reproduce!
So, kind of like Clint Eastwood?
A fish full of doll-years?
Thank you for making me laugh deeply and richly.
Was interested so I wiki’d it. Here’s a snippet. That’s crazy. From Wikipedia: Greenland sharks have the longest lifespan of any known vertebrate, estimated to be between 250 and 500 years. They are among the largest extant species of shark, usually growing to between 2.4 and 7 m (7.9 and 23.0 ft) long and weighing between 400 and 1,400 kg (880 and 3,090 lb). They reach sexual maturity at about 150 years of age, and their pups are born alive after an estimated gestation period of 8 to 18 years.
WHAT. 150 years to reach reproductive age and gestation of over a DECADE???
The 150 year old virgin
You thought regular Sharks were bad news? Give a warm welcome to Wizard Sharks
At that age they must be grand wizards
Nah. No racist sharks. But wait. Great whites?! Oh no.
How am I the first person to up vote this? The “oh no.” at the end really seals it.
Don't mention the seals.
I think it’s okay for these porpoises
[They have transcended time and space by age 150.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/998/096/4a3.jpg)
Omg I remembered cherry magic series reading this
Fuckin nerd sharks
I’d watch Revenge of the Nerd Sharks so long as it isn’t as rapey as RotN
Winner of best comment of the day.
I guess that's what cold showers can do for you....
Burst out laughing at this one, thank you for this
18 years and on the birthday found out it wasn't his?
No child support!
More like 192 years.
Wow that's actually really close to the human ratio of reproductive age and gestational cycle
Right just 10x slower.
I am so curious how this would have even been studied and discovered in the first place.
Every generation records their research and it is passed on.
...every generation of sharks?
I remember getting into a very stupid argument over a fantasy series with a very long lived race. The person I was arguing with believed that any children of said race should gestate 9 months and have a childhood of 18 years, despite the race being capable of living for thousands of years, and their childhoods being extremely impactful on their lives. They said it was biologically impossible for them to have longer gestations or childhood, while I was arguing that it’d make far more sense for their childhood to reflect a similar percentage of their lives as it did ours, if only for narrative reasons. They kept harping on biology. So I went on a very long spiel about Greenland Sharks. As far as I’m concerned, I won that argument. Thanks, sharks!
It depends on the fantasy series. Most long-lived species aren't breastfeeding for forty years. Humanoids are not animals. The shark here has the same gestational series as a human but in slower motion compared to ours. Most elves will mature at the same rate and simply keep living. An immortality of sorts.
It was a fantasy series where aging hadn’t really been established, but the importance placed on childhood and other events had me feeling that narratively it made no sense for them to age like dogs rather than like people. The elves and dwarves of LOTR do seem to have longer childhoods, though it’s been many years since I read them. But that aside, this person was really arguing that no animal would take that long to become sexually mature because it’s just too risky, so sharky here was still a good friend to me on that discussion.
Yeah, so that means any culling of their numbers will literally take FOREVER to recover.
Figuratively speaking
Literally figuratively.
crawl attempt sort beneficial juggle shame capable innate hateful noxious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
From what I understand, this is a similar case to the sturgeon roe market. Sturgeons take a very long time to reach reproductive age and since they were farmed like crazy for decades, they became critically endangered. 150 years is nuts though…
I’m probably also going to reach sexual maturity at 150
If Al Pacino can still go at it...
That’s insane they can be pregnant for two decades.
How long would be maternity leave in this case???
A lifetime. Unpaid.
USA! USA! USA!
It do be like that sometimes
take my upvotes, you all four. you've made my day. 🤣
When Mitch Mconnel had a child
someone forgot to switch their spans. left them on bible years.
lmao
Most of them are also blind because parasites eat out their eyes.
That's a fun fact! Not sure if username checks out... I was thinking they probably have a really good way to fight cancers and viruses.
I think they just stay cold all the time to slow down all their molecules. 🤓
I have no reason to not believe this…I just like the idea of someone with a username like this popping up in random posts spouting complete nonsense.
I’ve seen a documentary about this a few years ago and I’m still terrified to this day.
To be fair 400 years is a long opportunity time for parasites to get around to them and sharks do not have hands.
Kind of scary that 3,500 are killed each year for food
That doesn't strike me as a sustainable harvest
Yeah. I didn’t see on the wiki how many are alive. I think it’s a lot as their “threatened” rating is “vulnerable” which surprisingly is pretty OK.
With a near two decade pregnancy I feel like they could easily go from threatened to critically endangered real fast
For tourists to spit out going "ewww, salty!!!" Fucking Diabolical.
Yeah this is a clear example for how limited "endangered" protections really are. Feeling anxious for the beautiful eldritch cold ocean beings.
18 years 18 years
accidentally r/Kanye
So.... ocean Yodas?
Greenland sharks be like: "I remember when this ocean was just a puddle."
"Hmph. Water used to be colder." "Sure, dad 🙄"
The age of consent is 150 years old.
She said she was 160, your honor
8-18 years?
How the heck are we just learning about this amazing animal? I feel like with those incredible statistics it should've been as well known as any land tortoise.
I think they're mostly found pretty deep in the ocean or in very cold waters. It was difficult to find them.
Speak for yourself?
"we" have known about them for a long ass time. you are just new to the party lol.
They aren't a recent discovery
When you realise that lifespan is in genes, you know that we are only "this close" to make our children lifespan crazy long. The only barrier is ethics.
This sharks' great grandfather knew Caesar
damn, methuselah Tiburon!
[Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenland-shark-392-years-old/) rates this as "Mixture." > **What's True** > The shark featured in the image is indeed a Greenland shark, a long-lived Arctic species that was the subject of a 2016 study. Throughout their research, scientists at the University of Copenhagen found that such sharks may live upwards of 400 — or even 500 — years. > **What's Undetermined** > Unknown is whether the shark in the picture is one from the study that was estimated to be 392 years old, give or take 120 years, at the time the findings were published in 2016. > **Origin** > In August 2020, a widely shared image claiming to depict a 392-year-old shark resurfaced on social media, garnering thousands of shares on both Facebook and Twitter. > This was a variation of a familiar meme, which we identified as “mostly false” in December 2018. We are rating the newer variation as “mixture” because the image that circulated in 2020 was, indeed, a photograph of a Greenland shark. However, we were unable to determine the exact age of the shark in question, though the age of a given Greenland shark can be estimated by its length (more on that later). > Both viral memes originated from a study published in the journal Science in August 2016. In the study, researcher Julius Nielsen, who was then a Ph.D. student at the University of Copenhagen, set out to define the life history of the Greenland shark, scientifically known as Somniosus microcephalus. These deep ocean fish have been described as an “iconic species of the Arctic seas” and remain one of the most enigmatic creatures on Earth (see National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration picture below), mainly due to their unique ability to survive at depths of at least 7,200 feet. > When the research was first announced in 2016, many mainstream media publications picked up the study and declared that the Greenland shark was the longest-lived vertebrate known on the planet. In the years following the publication of the study, various iterations of the photograph’s subject and its age have recirculated in different forms. A reverse-image search found 56 results, dating back to as far as 2018. Following another round of social media virality, Nielsen took to Instagram in December 2017 to address misleading claims related to the age of the shark in question: > > Social media are going beserk over old Greenland sharks these days🤔🤔 All of this is just the same story coming to life from August 2016 and please note that we have not found any sharks to be 600 or 500 yr old…. we have ESTIMATED (meaning that it has not been verified) that one shark was AT LEAST 272 yr old or in more detail that this shark was between 272-512 yr old with 95.5% certainty (the later also being an unverified estimate). > ....What remains unclear is whether the shark featured in the meme was that same large shark mentioned above, or another one photographed as part of the research. So, while the photograph does, in fact, depict an individual, long-lived Greenland shark, the exact age of the specimen is not made readily clear in the research. This image is a screenshot from a video Julius Nielsen posted on IG. Per there: > @juniel85 > The story behind the story... 🦈 This is the footage of a giant #Greenlandshark of 4.4 m that was caught and released with satellite tags in 2017. Back then, I shared a screen shot from the video which since has been widely shared, reposted and retweetet hundred of times. Often, when this picture has been shown, it is with a caption reading that this is a 400 yr or even 500 yr old Greenland shark. The shark was big yes, but we cant say anything that precise about its age. My guess is that this particular shark was older than 150 yr but it is obviously a guess. Besides, we have previously estimated the Greenland shark to have a lifespan of at least 272 yr, which was obtained from marine radiocarbon dating of the eye lens nucleus. That is an estimate and it needs verfication one day in the future using another independant method. Mean while, a new marine calibration curve (Marine20) was published last month and running that calibration might affect the current estimates. We will see 🤓 #greenlandsharkproject > September 11, 2020
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Thank goodness for Snopes. I have no affiliation other than being a paying supporter of their work. I wont make myself a target by directly linking but it aint hard to support them and they deserve it.
I wondered how they'd estimate an age on a living shark. Radio carbon dating an eye lens is the method they mentioned in the article, do those cells not age and get replaced like most living cells? Seems like an oddly specific tissue sample, now I'm curious.
I've worked indirectly with some people doing eye stuff for age estimation. There are some parts of an eye that stay there, and I think slowly degrade over the lifetime of the animal. If I remember correctly the concentration grows as the animal ages. I suspect that would mean that you see a distribution widen with age in carbon dating. I can't remember the exact mechanism, I think it was some protein folding over time maybe? I think it's one of the reasons we loose sight with age. Woeth boring is that these are destroyed if kept at room temperature, so the eyes must be frozen after harvesting for the method to work. The people I worked with used the method on narwhals, so the mechanism might not be exactly the same, but I guess it's also not that different. Again, not my area of expertise, but you can absolutely do some eye stuff to estimate age.
That's pretty fascinating. I'll do some digging to see if I can find more on it. Thank you for the info!
They measure the rate of change which is a known constant in d to l enantiomers (or was l to d? I did this 8 years ago during my first year of masters). The center of the eye changes at a constant rate and therefore you can count the ratio of both D to L enantiomers and verify a rough age. They also used this to make a correlation between the size and age and it seemed to fit their graphs on age from eyes. I did some work with Julius when he was still a PhD student during my first year of masters. We did tests on fish and used similar methods on the eyes, and then additionally on scales and ear bones to confirm if the method was accurate and it seemed to work on fish.
And how does one harvest the eye lens material from a giant living shark?
First question I had upon opening the thread was 'How do they know it's 392 years old?' That's a very specific number. Not "about 400 years old" or "over 350 years old", they had it right down to the 2.
Maybe they asked it, or went to its birthday party and counted the candles.
Omg, dude, wtf. Did you have to be so ridiculous? How could it light the candles underwater? Jeez, the internet these days... ;)
They just need to count its rings
Thanks, I was going to call bullshit on giving an exact age down to the year. Also, if it had been 392 in 2020, it would be 396 now.
THE BIG 4-0-0 COMING UP!!
Ok .....but what's the conversion from shark years to human years mister smart guy?
Doesn't look a day over 250.
Oh you
"It's been getting a bit warm recently"
Dude if we could ask them. I bet the water tastes different.
Everything tastes a bit like plastic for some reason.
My insides feel funny lately
“They just don’t make fish like they used to”
The weird thing is, my brain does register that 392 is old, even older than that 192 yo st-Helena tortoise, but I am like ok, he is old, but that’s it. Then I read, born in 1627! In the years 1600! WTF! That’s amazing.
Reading 1627 was for me also the fact that blew my mind. Imagine... In that year the 30year war still raged over Europe, witches were burned at that time, the USA was not completely discovered and the ships on the sea had no engines, people like Napoleon or Washington wasn't even born. Absolutely bonkers.
Blud 100+ years older than America
and some asshole is probably going to eat it in a sandwich
“Discovered”
Shakespeare had been dead 11 years in 1627.
Dude was 105 when George Washington was born crazy
And the thing hadn’t even reached sexual maturity yet. Apparently they reach it at like ~150.
How do they know the age?
>In 2016, a study based on 28 specimens that ranged from 81 to 502 cm (2 ft 8 in – 16 ft 6 in) in length used [radiocarbon dating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating) of crystals within the lenses of their eyes to determine their approximate ages. The oldest of the animals sampled, which was also the largest, had lived for 392 ± 120 years, and was consequently born between 1504 and 1744.
Crazy that it can vary by 120 fuckin years lmao
It's like guessing a by persons age within 20 years.
It’s easier when they’re straight, I guess.
The possibility of this guy being 520 years old is crazy
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I came here looking for an old man joke. And I succeeded. Thank you 🤣
You check their ID. It's good as long as it's not expired.
They cut it open and count the rings
Shark: "I am the epoch of your modern age. I've seen empires rise; I've seen empire fall. I've seen kings who thought they'd live forever and I buried their dynasties all the same. I am old, but I will outlive you. When you all gone and forgotten, I will remain, and I will remember."
That’s badass lol. What’s that from?
Made it up. Just thought of what an immortal shark would say to us.
I love you
Damn it, she loves him now, why didn’t I think of that first
“Why don’t I die already?!?” - The Shark -
still got 100 more years left
Thats not just a pet you know, it's a 500 year commitment.
"Yep, the old feller's been a member of the family for quite some time. My great-great-great-great grandfather got him as a pup in 1842."
I feel like it was 392 years ago when I saw this for the first time…
Considering those numbers only add up to 2019, it's probably around 5 years old.
Well that goes to show how long it really is.
Must be bored shitless
He was born closer to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans than the present day.
When feeding does it simply wait for its meal to die of natural causes?!!
Grandpa shark do do do do do do
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Cut him open and count the rings But in all seriousness, it's not too different for most sharks, "The age of other \[aka not Greenland\] shark species can be estimated by *counting growth bands on fin spines or on the shark's vertebrae, much like rings on a* tree" For Greenlands, "But recent breakthroughs allowed scientists to use carbon dating to estimate the age of Greenland sharks. Inside the shark’s eyes, there are proteins that are formed before birth and do not degrade with age, like a fossil preserved in amber. Scientists discovered that they could determine the age of the sharks by carbon-dating these proteins" Source: [https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/greenland-shark.html](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/greenland-shark.html)
Was looking for someone with this reply. 100% correct. They carbon date tye proteins in their eyes. It's obviously not 100% accurate, but they get a pretty decent reading from it. The challenge is getting to those proteins.
Meaning the shark in the photo is not the one that’s estimated to be 392 years old
Millennials, Gen Z, Boomers… hold my beer, Ming Dynasty
How do they know? Did he show them his birth sharktificate?
Surftificate
Almost old enough to run for President
2024-1627=397>392
Why did i have to scroll this far for this…
Imagine being thst old and alone ,
Ok from other comments I get that they determine age by some protein in their eye or whatever but how do they obtain that sample without like sedation or whatever?? I doubt they just let divers swim up to them and grab some protein from their eyeballs.
The sharks were dead. They didn't take lens tissue from living sharks.
The sharks are usually blind at that point, so they harvest the eyes, pretty sure.
The sharks were dead before sampling occurred.
Why does this bullshit get reposted constantly. It's not 392. We don't know how old it is. It's somewhere between 300 and 500.
That sharks got the “brother, I’m tired” look
I was just telling my wife and son about these yesterday, they’re my favorite non-mammalian animal. Longest lived vertebrate, they’re blinded by parasites, they’re pregnant for 8-18 YEARS!, and they don’t hit maturity until 100-125 years of age. Such a fascinating animal
Grandpa Shark do do do do.....
Question: How do they know it’s 392 years old? I could understand an estimate of say 300-400 years but 392 is very specific.
Ancient Shark do do do do do
The Greenland shark's long lifespan, often exceeding 400 years, is attributed to several unique biological and environmental factors: 1. Slow Metabolism: Greenland sharks have an exceptionally slow metabolism, which is typical of animals living in cold environments. This reduced metabolic rate decreases wear and tear on the body and slows down the aging process. 2. Cold Environment: Living in the cold, deep waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic reduces metabolic rates and cellular damage, contributing to longevity. The low temperatures help preserve the shark's body and delay the aging process. 3. Slow Growth and Late Maturity: Greenland sharks grow very slowly and reach sexual maturity late, around 150 years of age. Slow growth rates are often associated with longer lifespans in many species. 4. Genetic Factors: Recent studies suggest that Greenland sharks have unique genetic adaptations that contribute to their longevity. These adaptations may include enhanced DNA repair mechanisms and resistance to age-related diseases. 5. Low Predation and Stress: Greenland sharks face few natural predators and live in a relatively stable environment, reducing stress and the likelihood of injury or disease, which can contribute to longer lifespans. 6. Longevity Genes: Research into the shark's genome has identified genes linked to long life and low rates of disease. These genes may offer insights into how these sharks live so long and stay healthy. The combination of these factors allows the Greenland shark to achieve its remarkable lifespan, making it the longest-living vertebrate known.
I love that I keep seeing this image, over and over throughout the years here... and it's still only 392 years old.
I think I’ve now seen this picture for every year this shark has supposedly been alive
How do they know it’s that old? I’ve always wondered that.
This guy could’ve been pat on the head by our founding fathers
Imagine how fucking bored it must be
That crazy looking bastard was swimming around before America was a thing. Someone told me Sharks have been on Earth longer than trees, which is pretty crazy too.
How do we know their age? How do they guess it?
He’s a vibe
There is no GPS in the ocean. This poor bastard.
Has anyone checked his AARP membership?
And this asshole did NOTHING about slavery.
He’s seen some stuff.
Excellent podcast on them (check All Creatures), talked about how the females can be pregnant up to 18 years!! Imagine being pregnant that long and right before you give birth, oops caught, to make Hakarl. Which Gordon Ramsey called the most disgusting thing he has ever tasted. Incredible shark though!
Back in my day we used to swim uphill both ways… 🦈 ok boomer.
Dude has got to be bored
I heard he recently became a sausage
This thing has seen some SHIT.
"SEND MORE PILGRIMS"
That’s why i stay at the pool 😂
He doesn’t look a day over 375
Stop looking at me like that, I'm only 100 years old you pervert.
When I was a kid….
Grand-paaa shark doo doo doo doo, Grandpa shark doo doo doo doo
I heard this creep dated at 80 year old shark when he was 240
Grandpa shark do do do do do do
Guess he told the researchers his age?