Animal Fun Facts: Meet the Greenland Shark
By Gianna Ursone, Chief Copy Editor
Welcome back to your weekly Animal Fun Facts! This week’s animal is one as old as time itself! Not quite literally as old as time, but it is quite old. Meet the Greenland Shark, scientifically known as the Somniosus microcephalus! This type of shark lives in the north Atlantic Ocean near Iceland, Norway and Canada. Let’s move onto some very interesting fun facts about these old geezers!
- Greenland Sharks are huge! They are some of the largest sharks in the world and can compare in size with Great Whites. They can grow to be as long as 21 feet and as heavy 2,100 pounds!
- Greenland Sharks have amazing camouflage! They can float through the depths of the Atlantic Ocean without being seen. This species is so good at hiding that scientists couldn’t even capture film of it until1995.
- These sharks love to live in cold water. The north Atlantic Ocean can reach temperatures of about 10°C (or 50°F), and because of this, Greenland Sharks are the only known shark species who can tolerate the cold.
- Sharks are often caught for their fins and sometimes their meat, but the Greenland Shark should not be consumed at all. Greenland Sharks have poisonous meat due to the trimethylamine oxide (TMAO) in the tissue of the shark’s flesh. This helps to stabilize their enzymes and proteins.
- As mentioned earlier, these sharks are the earth’s longest-living vertebrate. The Greenland Shark can live up to 400 years old or more!
That’s all the fun facts left for this week! Hope you all have learned something new about this old shark, and I hope that you all have enjoyed learning about these new animals as much as I have!
Illustration by Gianna Ursone
