What happened to the 519-year-old shark? He was last seen off the coast of Belize.

2024-05-02 14:31:50

What happened to him shark 519 years old? He was last seen in coast of Belize.

In 2022, biologists from the Department of Predator Ecology and Conservation at Florida International University had an encounter with a long-lived shark.

This finding was reported in an article published in the journal Marine Biology, where it is explained that the marine animal was a shark of Greenland.

Specialists estimated that this shark was more than 500 years old and caused excitement among the scientific community.

This is how scientists discovered a 519-year-old shark off the coast of Belize

It was during an expedition that a group of researchers found the shark that actually he would be 519 years old.

The specialists were temporarily tagging and capturing tiger sharks to study when they saw the surprising shark.

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519-year-old shark last seen off the coast of Belize (Marine Biology)

At first, biologists thought it was a sixgill shark, one of the predators of the Caribbean Sea.

However, when taking photographs of the marine species they noticed that it was a Greenland shark, which would have been born approximately in the year 1505.

In 2022, Devanshi Kasanaa biologist who spotted the long-lived shark, revealed:

“Suddenly we saw a very slow and lazy creature under the surface of the water, it seemed like something from prehistory.”

Devanshi Kasana

The surprising thing about the discovery is that this shark had not been seen for more than a decade, in addition to its Habitat is in the cold waters of Greenland and areas of the Arctic Ocean.

Biologists explained that the shark had most likely swum over the deepest ocean regions.

What happened to the 519-year-old shark that was last seen off the coast of Belize?

So far, there are no more details about the sighting of the 519 year old shark which was last seen off the coast of Belize.

The scientists who they saw it in 2022 They did not take more samples of the animal so as not to stress it.

Calculating the age of these sharks was previously done based on their slow growth rate of 1 cm per year.

However, a more precise method is now used, which consists of dating and carbon isotopes of one of the proteins found in their corneas.

These are present before birth and do not degrade over time.

This method has been tested by biologist Julius Nielsen and scientists from the University of Copenhagen.

They found a 400-year-old shark and it was recorded that the sexual maturity of said specimen could take up to 150 years.

519-year-old shark last seen off the coast of Belize (Marine Biology)

2024-05-02 14:31:50