• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Sharks Are 450 Million Years Old, Meaning They Were Here Before Trees

February 23, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Sharks evolved around 450 million years ago, which means they’ve hitched a lift on planet Earth around the galaxy twice. If that’s not yet given you a fact-induced headache, it may tip you over to hear that it also means sharks were on Earth before trees, at a time when Saturn didn’t have rings yet.

Part of their success comes down to their flexibility when it comes to environmental conditions, able to survive in a wide range of oceans and at different depths.

Advertisement

“I think it is safe to say that it is partly because sharks are able to exploit different parts of the water column – from deep, dark oceans to shallow seas, and even river systems,” Emma Bernard, a curator of fossil fish at the Natural History Museum said in a piece for the museum. “They eat a wide variety of food, such as plankton, fish, crabs, seals and whales. This diversity means that sharks as a group are more likely to survive if things in the oceans change.”

One of the longest-living sharks, the Greenland shark, certainly looks prehistoric. We actually only found out that they were capable of living to around 400 years old thanks to the atomic bomb, but the earliest sleeper sharks didn’t emerge until around 100 million years ago, by which time this group of fish had already been splashing around on Earth for well over a galactic year.

Throughout their existence, they’ve taken on some pretty funky morphologies, from the bizarre whorl-toothed Helicoprion, to the warm-blooded mighty megalodon. For a long time, we thought megalodon was a stocky chunk of murder mouth, but a recent study revealed that they may actually have been long and slender predators.

Advertisement

We’re still finding their ancient remains across the world – and while we’ve only got teeth to work from (those damn cartilaginous bones), some of the specimens are quite remarkable. Just check out this manganese-encrusted megalodon tooth that was found at a depth of around 3,090 meters (9,842 feet).

In the ~450 million years they’ve had to get settled, sharks have revealed some pretty unusual behaviors. In 2022, footage captured a shark strolling around on land like it was no big deal. At least nine species of sharks are known to use their fins to move about in shallow water, and some of these make brief jaunts entirely onto land.

So whatever that saying is about old dogs and new tricks, we’re not buying it. Sharks seem to have an endless variety of curious tricks up their fins, including, most recently, possibly knocking up a stingray.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. U.N. envoy of ousted Afghan government asks to keep New York seat
  2. These Are The Winners Of The Nobel Prize In Chemistry
  3. The Reason Why Different Cheeses Have A Smell
  4. People Want To Clean The Statue Of Liberty To Reveal Its True Color

Source Link: Sharks Are 450 Million Years Old, Meaning They Were Here Before Trees

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • First-Ever Recording Of Black Hole Recoil Captured During Merger – And You Can Listen To It
  • The Moon Is Moving Away From Earth At A Rate Of About 3.8 Centimeters Per Year. Will It Ever Drift Apart?
  • As Solar Storm Hits Earth NASA Finds “The Sun Is Slowly Waking Up”
  • Plate Tectonics And CO2 On Planets Suggest Alien Civilizations “Are Probably Pretty Rare”
  • How To Watch The “Awkward” Partial Solar Eclipse This Weekend
  • World’s Oldest Pots: 20,000-Year-Old Vessels May Have Been Used For Cooking Clams Or Brewing Beer
  • “The Body Is Slowly And Continuously Heated”: 14,000-Year-Old Smoked Mummies Are World’s Oldest
  • Pizza Slices, Polaroid Pictures, And Over 300 Hats: What’s Left Behind In Yellowstone’s Hydrothermal Areas?
  • The Mathematical Paradox That Lets You Create Something From Nothing
  • Ancient Asteroid Ripped Apart In Collision Had Flowing Water
  • Flying Foxes Include The World’s Biggest Bat And The Largest Mammal Capable Of True Flight
  • NASA Responds To Claims That Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Is An Advanced Alien Spacecraft
  • Millions Of Tons Of Gold Are In Earth’s Oceans, Potentially Worth Over $2 Quadrillion
  • The Race Back To The Moon: US Vs China, Will What Happens Next Change The Future?
  • NOAA Issues G3 Geomagnetic Storm Warning As 500,000 Kilometer Hole Sends Solar Wind At Earth
  • Lasting 776 Days, This Is The Longest Case Of COVID-19 Ever Recorded
  • Living Cement: The Microbes In Your Walls Could Power The Future
  • What Can Your Earwax Reveal About Your Health?
  • Ever Seen A Giraffe Use An Inhaler? Now You Can, And It’s Incredibly Wholesome
  • Martian Mudstone Has Features That Might Be Biosignatures, New Brain Implant Can Decode Your Internal Monologue, And Much More This Week
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version