The narrators of wildlife documentaries will sometimes suggest that odd-looking animals are \u201cthe stuff of science fiction\u201d. They have a few too many eyes. They spout poisonous ink. That sort of thing.<\/p>\n
Ho and, indeed, hum. News that a Greenland shark<\/a> has washed up<\/a> on the coast of Co Sligo<\/a> confronts us with an altogether more unsettling strangeness. The unfortunate beast was estimated at being about 150 years old. Sounds venerable. But this is merely the age at which males of the species achieve sexual maturity (something Irish men manage in half the time).<\/p>\n These grey, torpedo-shaped animals can expect to live more than 300 years. A few well-preserved individuals \u2013 those that avoid cigs and trans fats \u2013 are believed to have made it past 500. This hardly seems possible. It is similar to discovering there is a creature out there that can teleport to other planets.<\/p>\n The Greenland shark is not close to being the longest-lived organism on Earth. Black corals survive more than 4,000 years. The glass sponge clocks more than 10,000. <\/p>\n So when the oldest living of those hexactinellids was a baby, Early Neolithic humans in the Americas were just discovering agriculture. We had not yet invented the potter\u2019s wheel. Our ancestors on this island were living in the crude round huts you can see modelled at the Mountsandel Mesolithic site, in Coleraine. <\/p>\n And I feel old for remembering The Beatles splitting up?<\/p>\n But sponges and coral don\u2019t really cut it. They scarcely register as organisms at all. The Greenland shark, as the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth, is more in our biological neighbourhood. Creatures with backbones (and eyes and mouths) are part of the family. That\u2019s the sort of chap you could go for a pint with.<\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018Exceptionally rare\u2019 – How a Greenland shark that can live up to 500 years washed up on an Irish shoreOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Our late whippersnapper will, sadly, never make it to the pub. Last weekend the cartilaginous visitor was discovered beached not far from Sligo town. It was then taken to the regional veterinary laboratory, prior to tissue samples being preserved as part of the National Museum of Ireland<\/a>\u2019s collection. A representative of that body described the discovery as exceptionally rare in Irish waters.<\/p>\n We humans think of ourselves as comparatively long-lived beings. \u201cComparatively\u201d is the operative word there. We live near dogs, cats, gerbils, sparrows and squirrels. If we eat meat, we eat cows, chickens, lambs and pigs. <\/p>\n The greatest chance most of us have of meeting anything with a greater average lifespan than a human is a visit to a Gal\u00e1pagos tortoise at a zoo. You maybe once met a parrot that was pushing 60, but that is a rare enough occurrence. <\/p>\n This is just one way in which we foolishly imagine ourselves divinely engineered superbeings. Our pets quail before our near immortality. Why not put a bolt through the head of that poor cow? It\u2019s not as if she will live to welcome in another decade, anyway. (I no longer eat meat. I am speaking for an invented monster. Do not write in.)<\/p>\n