Scientists estimate a Greenland shark lived about 400 years

Their paper says the only creature to live longer is the ocean quahog, a type of edible clam which has a life expectancy of 507 years.

Known formally as Somniosus microcephalus, the Greenland sharks are the largest fish native to Arctic waters.

“It’s really fun to dig in to a very fundamental question about such a big animal”, said Julius Nielsen, one of the study’s authors, and a PhD candidate from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Given their speed and preference for icy waters, these huge carnivorous sharks are unlikely to be swallowing any humans. “We could see right from the beginning that we were dealing with something extreme”, Nielsen said. “And the thing about Greenland sharks is just we don’t know how many sharks are out there. And it was, of course, a very big surprise to learn that it was actually the oldest vertebrate animal”. Steffensen and his graduate student Julius Nielsen spent several years collecting dead Greenland sharks, majority accidently ensnared in trawling nets used to catch other types of fish. A dating analysis of 28 female Greenland sharks, published today in Science, determined that the oldest individual lived to be somewhere between 272 and 512 years of age. But the two largest sharks, at 4.93 metres and 5.02 metres in length, were estimated to be 335 and 392 years old, respectively.

Their slow growth rate – about one centimeter per year – contributes to their exceptionally long lives, beating out other well-known centenarians of the animal world such as the bowhead whale and the Galapagos tortoise.

Olshansky agrees. “Having another vertebrate living so long tells us that natural selection has successfully produced a species capable of avoiding or delaying diseases such as cancer or neurological disorders, for far longer time periods than humans are now capable of living”.

If you’re counting on technology to radically extend your lifespan, you’ll want to pay close attention to what’s happening with the Greenland shark. But now the species can demand respect: scientists say it is the planet’s longest-lived vertebrate, or animal with a backbone.

The prior oldest vertebrate was reportedly a bowhead whale that reached 211 years old.

He and others think cold water helps lengthen the animals’ lives by slowing down their growth and biochemical activity. “It’s probably playing a role”. The centers of the lenses can be analyzed by radiocarbon dating to determine about when the shark was born.

Still, he says, just imagine what it would be like to have muscles, like these sharks, that have been working nonstop since the time of the Pilgrims. “I don’t consider them threatened, but I do consider them vulnerable”, Neilsen said.

He notes that Greenland sharks would not be easy to study in the lab, but perhaps people could study shark cells grown in a dish.

By carelessly wiping out biodiversity, Perrott added, “we run the risk of forever losing the opportunity to study organisms with insight into humanity’s most pressing medical challenge, the aging process”.

The study also found they don’t even reach sexual maturity until around 150 years old.