Is it true that the photo shows a shark that is about 400 years old?

A photograph has been circulated on social networks that allegedly shows a shark that has been living in the ocean for several centuries. We have verified the authenticity of this photo.

Photos of the “world’s oldest» shark born in 1627 and living either in the Atlantic or Arctic Ocean, appear from time to time on VKontakte over the past few years. The image did not bypass other social networks - for example, Twitter, Facebook And Pikabu. In some publications you can find another animal age assessment — more than 500 years.

News about the “world’s oldest” shark first appeared at the end of 2017. In Russia, the country's largest TV channels talked about it - NTV And "Russia 24". The shark, born in 1505, was allegedly caught in the North Atlantic Ocean. The length of the animal, a member of the Greenland shark species, was 5.4 m, and its age was determined using radiocarbon dating of the eye lens. As the NTV channel clarified, the opening became known from publications British tabloid The Sun.

The story became popular again two years later when The Sun probably published your text again. The news was retold in Russian, for example, Lenta.ru And "News". This time, scientists allegedly determined the age of the shark by its size - they proceeded from the premise that the animal grows by 1 cm per year, respectively, with a length of 5.4 m, its age exceeds half a millennium.

The author of the original British publication talked about the unique shark with reference to an unnamed study in the authoritative scientific journal Science. Its authors, according to The Sun, analyzed 28 representatives of the species and calculated that the most likely age of the oldest of them was between 272 and 512 years. The arithmetic mean between these numbers is 392 years, hence the second popular estimate of the shark's age. Photographs were used in the design of the material, which were then widely distributed on social networks. Judging by the captions, the images were taken from the Instagram account @juniel85. For example, the photo that interested us was cut from this video:

This account belongs biologist Julius Nielsen from the University of Copenhagen. In 2016, he, along with several co-authors published in the journal Science an article about how radiocarbon dating of the lens was able to determine the high life expectancy of the Greenland shark. Apparently, this is the study that was discussed in The Sun. Note that Nielsen has repeatedly complained on his Instagram about unprofessional journalists distorting his conclusions. “Please remember that we have not found any sharks that are 600 or 500 years old... We have only roughly estimated (that is, it is not confirmed) that one of the sharks is at least 272 years old, or more accurately between 272 and 512 years old with a 95.5% probability,” wrote biologist at the end of 2017.

Thus, although Greenland sharks are truly long-lived, the photographs popular in the media and social networks do not depict the oldest individuals. For example, the shark on the cover of this publication is estimated by researchers to be about 150 years old. Moreover, biologists only made an assumption about the age of the oldest of the studied individuals, proposing the lower and upper limits of the possible age. And some journalists and bloggers, in turn, began to present the maximum possible calculated number as a verified result. And even the second popular age estimate of 392 years only seems more accurate - in fact, it is far from the truth.

Mostly not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. J. Nielsen et al. Eye lens radiocarbon reveals centuries of longevity in the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus)
2. USA Today. Fact check: Claim that a viral image shows a 392-year-old shark is unverified