A 399-Year-Old Shark Born in 1627 Reveals a Dark Truth About the Deep Ocean

A Greenland shark estimated to be nearly 400 years old sounds like a creature from myth, but the science behind it is even stranger. Researchers did not read its age from bones or rings. They found the clue inside proteins formed before birth and preserved in the lens of its eye.

The headline number should be handled carefully: the famous study estimated the largest shark’s age at around 392 years, with an uncertainty range from 272 to 512 years. Even the lower estimate still makes the Greenland shark the longest-lived vertebrate known to science, and that is where the darker truth begins.