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Animal profile
Somniosus microcephalus
The Greenland shark is a heavy, slow sleeper shark reaching five metres or more in near-freezing water. It swims at around one kilometre per hour and takes fish, seals and carrion. Most individuals carry a parasitic copepod attached to the eye, and their flesh is toxic unless processed.
Radiocarbon dating of proteins in the eye lens, which form before birth and are never replaced, gave a Greenland shark population age range with a most likely maximum near 390 years. It is the longest lifespan established for any vertebrate.
Sharks lack the bony structures used to age other fish. Researchers instead radiocarbon-dated the metabolically inert core of the eye lens, which forms before birth, and found lifespans measured in centuries.