When it comes to the longevity champions in the history of life on earth, everyone's thoughts often involuntarily drift to the leisurely world of turtles. It is true that tortoises are known for their longevity, with the oldest individuals able to cross the threshold of two centuries, however, the lifespan of most tortoises is still limited to decades, not as long as the world can imagine.
As everyone knows, in the vast blue deep sea, especially in the secluded waters around Greenland, there is an even older inhabitant - the Greenland sleeping shark, whose life trajectory is long enough to be beyond the reach of land creatures. The average lifespan of this shark stands proudly above the peak of 400 years, and the miracle of scientific exploration reveals a Greenland sleeping shark with a lifespan of more than 500 years, and its years have slowly spread out from the morning light of China's Ming Dynasty, witnessing the vicissitudes of history.
The life of the sleeping shark in Greenland is a slow poem in the whispers of time. Its growth is slow, like a trickle in the forest, year after year, only increasing by a centimeter, until one hundred and fifty-six years of beauty, it shows its maturity. At this time, it was not only a living fossil in the ocean, but also the jewel of the crown of life in the vertebrate kingdom, the oldest known Greenland sleeping shark, whose tree of life had been deeply rooted as early as 1505.
Scientists used the shark's body length as a time yardstick to measure that behind the huge body of this giant beast of 5.4 meters, more than 500 years of wind, frost, rain and snow were hidden. The huge size gives it calm strength, but it also makes its every move seem so calm, when hunting, it needs to rely on the exquisite camouflage art, waiting for the prey to fall into the net, this patience and wisdom, in the countless observations of scientists, still maintain a veil of mystery.
Even more surprising is the discovery of the remains of land creatures such as deer and horses in the stomachs of a few deceased Greenland sleeping sharks, as if a strange intersection of the deep sea and the land, challenging conventional perceptions of biogeography. This unsolved mystery still puzzles scientists to this day, and the boundary between the deep sea and the land seems to be blurred and blurred in the story of this long-lived traveler.
The mystery of the Greenland sleeping shark, the long-lived hermit of the ocean, is closely linked to unique genes, and scientists have speculated that the secret hidden in the DNA sequence may be one of the keys to unlocking the dream of human longevity. An in-depth exploration of the genes of the Greenland sleeping shark may reveal the miracle of life and lead humanity to a longer journey. How do you feel about this?