Scientists Discover 512-Year-Old Shark, Which Would Be The Oldest Living Vertebrate On The Planet

A couple of months ago, a group of scientists discovered an ancient shark in the North Atlantic ocean. While they knew that this shark had definitely reached senior age, they didn’t realize until recently that the animal is estimated to be a whopping 512 years old.

At 512 years, that would make this ancient shark the oldest living vertebrate in the world.

Even though over half a millennium seems like a crazy amount of time, Greenland sharks actually tend to outlive most other animals because they are a very slow-growing species. These sharks generally reach a mature age at 150 years old, and some reports have shown that some sharks have lived for almost 400 years. This new discovery of a 512-year-old definitely breaks a record.

512 years would put the birth date of this shark at 1505, older than Shakespeare.

The discovery was detailed in a research study published in the journal Science. Marine biologist Julius Nielsen and his team used a technique to measure the amount of radiocarbon in the eye lenses of Greenland sharks, revealing the possible age of this senior animal.