The Greenland shark grows about one centimetre a year, does not reach sexual maturity until around age 150, and a specimen carbon-dated by Danish researchers in 2016 was estimated to be at least 272 years old, meaning it was already swimming the North Atlantic when Mozart was composing symphonies. (opens in new tab)

When marine biologist Julius Nielsen pulled the lens from the eye of a five-metre Greenland shark in his Copenhagen lab, he was holding tissue that had started forming before the United States existed. The proteins in his hands had been laid down sometime in the 1600s — possibly earlier still. They had survived three centuries […]