Greenland Sharks: How many years old?

A species of shark known as the Greenland sharks have been discovered and were initially said to be over five-hundred years old. However, eye tissue analysis of twenty-eight different Greenland sharks have revealed that the oldest sharks of these species is three-hundred thirty-five and three-hundred ninety-two years old. These two were the biggest sharks examined.

According to the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG), Greenland sharks are native to the Arctic and North Atlantic. They can grow to be up to 24 feet long and weigh up to 1,200 kilograms, and their body weight suggests why they are exceptionally slow-moving creatures.

Many methods have been used to determine the actual age of the sharks, such as reading rings that form in the hardened tissue of the calcified vertebrae of the shark as it ages. This method was useless because these sharks have soft bone structure that do not form age-telling signs. Radiocarbon dating has also been used to figure out the correct age of the sharks by letting eye tissue absorb radioactive carbon isotopes. The Greenland shark has been recognized as the longest living vertebrate known to science, claimed to live up-to almost five-hundred years.