The Oldest Vertebrate Animal - 400 Year Old Shark!

mosaix

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400-year-old Greenland shark is oldest vertebrate animal

She was born during the reign of James I, was a youngster when René Descartes set out his rules of thought and the great fire of London raged, saw out her adolescent years as George II ascended the throne, reached adulthood around the time that the American revolution kicked off, and lived through two world wars. Living to an estimated age of nearly 400 years, a female Greenland shark has set a new record for longevity, scientists have revealed.

[To determine the age] the team had to rely on a different approach: scrutiny of the lenses in their eyes.

The lens of the eye is made of proteins that build up over time, with the proteins at the very centre of the lens laid down while the shark is developing in its mother’s womb. Work out the date of these proteins, the scientists say, and it is possible to achieve an estimate of the shark’s age.

In order to determine when the proteins were laid down, the scientists turned to radiocarbon dating - a method that relies on determining within a material the levels of a type of carbon, known as carbon-14, that undergoes radioactive decay over time.

It's difficult to come to terms with an age of 400 years and the human history that has passed during that time.
 
I heard about this on the radio this morning. To be fair they have an incredibly slow metabolism living in an extremely cold environment. I think I remember them saying they grow at a rate of just one centimetre a year and when you consider they can get to be 6-7 metres that sort of suggests even longer lifespans.
 
What I find more amazing is a sexual maturity at 150 years old; which sounds insane when you consider what a vast timespan that is and how that shark must have lived in a very stable environment for such a huge period of time to be able to breed on such a phenomenally slow time scale. It might also mean that its capacity to survive in variable conditions must be extreme or its got a very good capacity to migrate to suitable waters because it certainly won't be able to evolve or adapt to faster changes in the environment. At 150 years the environment can change drastically even without human intervention.
 
Some interesting stuff about the shark here: Greenland Shark

Fascinating that high levels of Urea and Trimethylamine Oxide in the flesh (toxic) not only help preserve water balance between shark and environment but also act as a natural anti-freeze. It's stuff like this that can be a goldmine when an SF writer is thinking about how creatures survive in an inhospitable alien environment:)
 
Unreal and too cool. What else is in there, in the sea... lurking and worried about the stupid humans and their nets. I think the Ocean aminals should establish a govt. and rule o'er the land creatures... they are older and wiser in there.
 
Unreal and too cool. What else is in there, in the sea... lurking and worried about the stupid humans and their nets. I think the Ocean aminals should establish a govt. and rule o'er the land creatures... they are older and wiser in there.

Maybe they'll find Megladon the largest predatory Shark that eve lived. Wouldn't that be really cool? :D
 
Unreal and too cool. What else is in there, in the sea... lurking and worried about the stupid humans and their nets. I think the Ocean aminals should establish a govt. and rule o'er the land creatures... they are older and wiser in there.
How about Giant Squid? They only got the first images of a live one about ten years ago and only very recently (2012) got the first video of a live one.
 
I know what's in there, a fish told me in a dream-and it is big. But still scared of the land-fleshapoids, apparently.
 
Maybe they'll find Megladon the largest predatory Shark that eve lived. Wouldn't that be really cool? :D
Yes, but it was adapted to preying on whales and whalesharks. Quite unlikely. Sorry.

Also the 400 years is the upper age estimate. the lower is closer to 150 years. Still old, but no surprise what the media went with.

There's a reason C14 dating tends not to reliably work on ocean life. All living organisms absorb C14 through sunlight. That process stops as soon as the organism dies. By calculating the halflife of C14 you can reasonably check the year something died within a a reasonable margin.(It's more complicated than that, but I'm paraphrasing) however fish absorb C14 from the sun, but also from the environment. And in turn everything that has fish in their diet, seems to be a lot older than it actually is.
Viking settlements seemed to be 1200 years older than they actually were for example.
Which is why they went for the shark eyes

Slow metabolism leading to long lifespans is a common survival strategy amongst animals in the arctic. The Blob fish (voted ugliest fish in existence) is also an extremely slow breeder. And it might be we've already wiped out the next generation without realizing it. normal squid have lifespan of barely 3 years. But since some species of giant squid live in cold arctic waters they too might have slow metabolisms and live much longer lives.

While 150 years might seem like an absurdly ling time for a species to reach sexual maturity. Don't forget that these are sharks we're talking about. Some of the hardiest and most ancient predators on Earth. Liviing in a harsh yet stable environment that until only recently (from the point of view of the sharks natural history) marine mammals haven't been able to exploit.
 
fish absorb C14 from the sun, but also from the environment. And in turn everything that has fish in their diet, seems to be a lot older than it actually is.
Viking settlements seemed to be 1200 years older than they actually were for example.

Greenland Shark flesh is an Icelandic delicacy (Hakarl). It might be interesting to carbon date a few Icelanders and see what age they come up as:whistle:
 
Greenland Shark flesh is an Icelandic delicacy (Hakarl). It might be interesting to carbon date a few Icelanders and see what age they come up as:whistle:
As previously stated they would have to be dead Icelandics first. But yeah probably off by a couple of years.
C14 analyses are still rather expensive though. You'ld need to set up a compelling argument to justify the costs.
 
Carbon dating also doesn't really work after 1945; unless they've managed to come up with some new theory or method of accounting for the effects of the atomic bombs and atomic testing which throws carbon dates way off. So dating something really recent is likely to give very odd results
 
Carbon dating also doesn't really work after 1945; unless they've managed to come up with some new theory or method of accounting for the effects of the atomic bombs and atomic testing which throws carbon dates way off. So dating something really recent is likely to give very odd results
I was kind of assuming the test would have to take icelandics who have been dead for at least 100+ years as a given.
 

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