{"id":193626,"date":"2024-07-26T18:22:36","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T23:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/scientists-discover-500-year-old-shark"},"modified":"2024-07-26T18:22:36","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T23:22:36","slug":"scientists-discover-500-year-old-shark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/scientists-discover-500-year-old-shark","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover 500-year-old shark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-discover-500-year-old-shark2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Imagine discovering a creature that could be as old as 500 years, swimming in the depths of the ocean. This is exactly what you find with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrighterside.news\/post\/shark-species-thought-extinct-for-over-200-years-discovered-alive-off-the-coast-of-chile\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Greenland shark<\/a>, a species now recognized as the longest-lived vertebrate in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Julius Nielsen, a marine biologist at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ku.dk\/english\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">University of Copenhagen<\/a>, led a research team that made this groundbreaking discovery. They found a Greenland shark that was at least 272 years old, possibly even reaching 500 years in age, surpassing the previous record held by a 211-year-old bowhead whale.<\/p>\n<p>Determining the age of many fish is done by counting the growth layers in calcium carbonate \u201cstones\u201d found in their ears, similar to counting tree rings. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrighterside.news\/post\/ancient-sharks-appeared-much-earlier-than-previously-thought\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sharks don\u2019t have these earstones<\/a>. Additionally, the Greenland shark lacks other calcium-rich tissues suitable for this method. Instead, scientists used a different technique: examining the lenses in their eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine discovering a creature that could be as old as 500 years, swimming in the depths of the ocean. This is exactly what you find with the Greenland shark, a species now recognized as the longest-lived vertebrate in the world. Julius Nielsen, a marine biologist at the University of Copenhagen, led a research team that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}