Wonder Facts: Older Than Nations — the Greenland Shark

The Wonder Facts shelf returns — one astonishing true thing at a time, checked against a trusted source before a single frame is made, and narrated by The Wizard.

🔎 Older Than Nations — Could a shark still swimming today have been born nearly four hundred years ago? For the Greenland shark, the answer is yes. Scientists aged the largest one they studied at 392 years — the longest life ever documented for any vertebrate — by radiocarbon-dating its eye lens, which forms before birth and is never replaced. Even the lowest estimate, 272 years, beats the bowhead whale, and this slow giant does not become a mother until about 156. Source: Smithsonian Ocean, "In the Eyes of One Shark, Age is Nothing to Fear."

Which world should The Wizard check next — the human body, the ancient world, or the wild weather above us?

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