The oldest animal in the world was born in 1505 and lives in Greenland

This shark is known as a slow growing animal because its size increases by about 1 centimeter per year and can reach over 5 meters. (Video: Instagram / @ juniel85)

the shark of Greenland went viral after a tweet from a group of researchers began circulating claiming the animal was born in 1505, one year before the death of Christopher Colombus.

This shark is known to be slow growing, as its size increases by approximately 1 centimeter per year and can reach more than 5 meters.

In a study published in the journal Science, it has been postulated that this animal is the oldest vertebrate in the Earth. This shark is part of a species also known as the boreal shark that only lives in the cold waters of the North Atlantic and the arctic oceans.

To estimate the age, a mathematical model was used that analyzed the lens of the eye on one side and the cornea of ​​the shark on the other. There, the researchers extracted the eyes of 28 female specimens that were taken accidentally. The ages of all animals ranged from 272 to 512 years.

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Thus, this analysis gave an average life expectancy of 392 years, the living shark discovered could therefore be up to 515 years old. But, since the carbon tests have a margin of error of 120 years, the animal, in the worst case, would be 395 years old.

Steven campana, a shark expert from the University of Iceland, said that “it is almost unbelievable that we do not know whether the shark lives 20 years or a thousand years”.

This is because it is a species that lives more than 2 thousand meters deep and its meat is toxic due to the high concentrations of trimethylamine oxide, so it does not or does not generate economic interest.

Although the original goal was to analyze age, the study also determined, for example, that the shark does not reach sexual maturity until 150 years, and therefore it must be protected from fishing, to prevent it from coming into danger of extinction.

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Experts felt that this study can be very useful for humans, as it would help understand how these sharks live so many years without developing cancer or other diseases.