The Strange and Gruesome Story of the Greenland Shark, the Longest-Living Vertebrate on Earth

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Greenland sharks, one of nature’s least elegant creatures, have an estimated lifespan of up to 600 years.

Greenland sharks are among nature’s least elegant inventions. Lumpish, with stunted pectoral fins that they use for ponderously slow swimming in cold and dark Arctic waters, they have blunt snouts and gaping mouths that give them an unfortunate, dull-witted appearance. Many live with worm-like parasites that dangle repulsively from their corneas. They belong, appropriately enough, to the family. Once widely hunted for their liver oil, today they are considered bycatch.

And yet the species has an undeniable magnetism. It is among the world’s largest predatory sharks, growing up to eighteen feet in length, but also among its most elusive. Its life history is a black box, one that researchers have spent decades trying in vain to peer inside.

The mystery might have lingered were it not for the work of three Danish scientists—a physicist named Jan Heinemeier and two marine biologists, John Fleng Steffensen and Julius Nielsen. Nine years ago, Heinemeier and four of his colleagueson lens crystallines, a class of proteins found in the human eye. Like all organic molecules, crystallines contain carbon, including trace amounts of the radioactive isotope carbon-14.

Heinemeier’s paper made no mention of Greenland sharks. He and his co-authors did note, however, that their lens technique might be useful in the field of forensics. Not long after the study was published, Heinemeier received a request from police in Germany. They needed his help cracking an unusual case. In the city of Wenden, near Cologne, a teen-ager had opened his family’s freezer in search of a snack and discovered the bodies of three infant girls, wrapped in plastic.

In 2009, Heinemeier received another request, this time from Steffensen, who had recently travelled to Greenland and confronted the longevity puzzle. Was there a way, Steffensen asked, to use the sharks’ soft vertebrae for carbon dating? Heinemeier told him about his recent breakthrough in the murder case and suggested that Steffensen return to Greenland and bring back some lenses. But there was a problem.

 

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Yeah but do they have a verified Twitter account?

how the heck do you think you would look after 200 years much less 600..?

May be 'old' news to erikmissio, but may still be of interest ....

yeaaa and at around about 240- 260 years old they start thinking,,' Please End Me Now!!..Take Me ..Im Ready For God Sakes!! '

He should remember how Noah was look like

The last one discovered was 390 old years

If Rupert Murdoch can crack the greenland shark’s longevity he can live 600 years: no succession

Unbelievable!! What’s their retirement age? 575?

And the females never forget. Joke. It’s Valentines Day!

bungdan gotta love those squalidae

& For the most part, They don't need notepads or calendars

But they don’t look a day over 580. I tell ya, diet and exercise, that’s the key. 🙄

TVietor08 Lack of elegance is a defining characteristic of dancers, not fish that swim in freezing waters for hundreds of years.

They must’ve been on the ark.

Why you be hating on the Greenland shark like that?

What do they even do for that long? Fuck that.

See how elegant you are when you hit 600.

TVietor08 “Least elegant creatures” damn respect your elders man.

Least elegant? Sorry, not all sharks can have a fucking monocle, fancy boy!

So they will outlive humans?

Why do they get to live 600 years, but our precious dogs only ten?

If these sharks could talk.

Elegant must be in the eye of the beholder.

Too bad they can’t speak. They could give a personal warning about the changes climate change has done to our oceans.

so elegant

Quel marronnier cet article🥱

Stop judging sharks that’s pitifully shallow. GodsCreatures

That article definitely becomes really weird. I'm not gonna give a spoiler, but it's creepy.

I think they're quite elegant.

So almost old enough to be president of the United States?

Rude.

Ouch. Who are we to judge creatures’ elegance…

600 years is pretty damn elegant !!

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