Like the icy ocean depths it inhabits, the Greenland shark is ancient, vast, and hella mysterious. Thanks to a new study from researchers at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the Natural History Museum of Denmark and colleagues, though, we now know one more thing about this gentle arctic giant: the fact that it\u2019s a big stinkin\u2019 liar.<\/p>\n
Okay, to be fair, it\u2019s more \u201cwhoever named the species\u201d, rather than the sharks themselves \u2013 and it was presumably not on purpose. But after careful and painstaking analysis of various Danish, Norwegian, and German museum specimens and international catch and observation databases, the verdict is in: Greenland sharks are probably born closer to Denmark than their national namesake.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe study breathes new life into the story of the Greenland shark throughout the North Atlantic,\u201d said Peter Rask M\u00f8ller, an associate professor and marine biologist at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and coauthor of the new paper, in a statement<\/a> last week. \u201cAnd, among other things, [it] provides an understanding of how Denmark’s deepest sea area also plays a role in the species’ life history.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Searching for giants<\/strong><\/p>\n Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) may live for upwards of 500 years<\/a>, but where they begin that epic lifespan so far been a complete mystery. Pupping grounds, where mother sharks deliver and their babies start their lives, are unknown, despite the pups being reasonably sized \u2013 not too far off the length of a human newborn, actually \u2013 and potentially numbering in the hundreds per litter.\u00a0<\/p>\n That wouldn\u2019t be a problem, of course, except that \u2013 like sharks in general<\/a> around the world \u2013 Greenland sharks are struggling right now: they\u2019re currently listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, thanks mostly to overfishing and \u201cbycatch\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe number one threat to sharks and their relatives, by far \u2013 so much that there is really not a number two threat \u2013 is unsustainable overfishing,\u201d David Shiffman<\/a>, shark conservation scientist and author of Why Sharks Matter, told IFLScience earlier this year. \u201cHumans are killing more sharks than sharks are having babies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOverfishing is a big problem for lots of species, and the knock-on ecological effects of some harmful fishing practices are especially harmful for a lot of species and ecosystems,\u201d explained Shiffman, who was not involved in the new study. \u201cBut sharks in particular are extremely biologically vulnerable to this, and that’s because they have relatively few babies, relatively infrequently, relatively late in life. What that means is their populations just don’t bounce back that fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Protecting the pups that are born, then, is a high priority \u2013 but actually doing so, when you have no idea where they\u2019re hanging out, is pretty difficult.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another problem, though: how the heck do you go about finding them? There\u2019s the whole of the North Atlantic to search \u2013 and some of that area can get pretty deep, too, with depths of up to 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) in some places around Greenland<\/a> \u2013 and so far, no real hints on where to start. That is, until the researchers looked a little closer at the historical logs \u2013 including tens of thousands of unpublished or unofficial records \u2013 and found a handful of clues from the past century-and-a-half to light the way.<\/p>\n Following the clues<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s not that nobody has been looking for these Greenland pups. \u201cMore than sixty years ago, Hansen suggested that pupping grounds in Greenland were located offshore in deep waters beyond the reach of commercial fisheries,\u201d the paper explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is still a valid hypothesis considering the overall rarity of gravid [pregnant] females and neonates.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When they say \u201crare\u201d, they mean it. \u201cIn fact, only a single gravid female and two free- swimming neonates are known from the scientific literature,\u201d they note; similarly, \u201crecords of small juveniles are scarce [\u2026] with one specimen each in Arctic Canada south, mainland Norway, Svalbard, and Faroe Islands, and two specimens from Iceland. A single small juvenile from southwest Greenland has also been identified in a museum collection.\u201d<\/p>\n For those keeping count, that\u2019s 10 altogether. Ten records of either a pregnant female Greenland shark, a newborn pup, or a young juvenile. In 150 years. Even when you widen the search to include older juveniles \u2013 the \u201cteenage\u201d sharks, if you like \u2013 and those found in unpublished surveys over the years, it still only totals a few dozen pre-adult Greenland sharks over more than a century.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s certainly not a lot \u2013 but it\u2019s enough to make some deductions. \u201cThe female carrying near-term pups was caught in offshore Faroese Islands shelf waters,\u201d the researchers write, so perhaps you\u2019d expect this to be a potential pupping grounds for the animals. The team say no, however: it \u201cis not likely,\u201d they write, \u201cbecause neither gravid females nor neonates have been reported from this area despite high fishing activity.\u201d<\/p>\n The one place that neonates do seem to be found is around the Reykjanes Ridge, southwest of Iceland. A handful \u2013 literally fewer than 10 \u2013 have been seen there at depths of up to a kilometer (0.6 miles), and only incidentally, while surveyors were looking for other fish. Similar studies elsewhere, even in areas that are comparable to the Reykjanes Ridge, haven\u2019t found Greenland sharks \u2013 meaning wherever these babies are living, they seem to be particular about it.<\/p>\n \u201cFuture targeted studies will most likely confirm that the Greenland shark gives birth to its many pups in undisturbed parts of the deep sea near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in deep waters,\u201d says the study’s lead author Julius Nielsen, a visiting researcher at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and former employee of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. \u201c[That\u2019s] where there is little activity from commercial fisheries.\u201d<\/p>\n Teenage kicks<\/strong><\/p>\n From their pupping grounds, these sharks then head East, to an area known to Scandinavians as the Skagerrak. We know, it sounds like an antagonist from a never-aired Thor movie \u2013 but really, it\u2019s just the name for that little hook of sea in between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe consider the deepest areas of the Skagerrak to be a potentially important feeding ground for \u2018teenage Greenland sharks\u2019,\u201d Rask M\u00f8ller said. \u201cIn fact, the study is the first to systematically examine the occurrence of Greenland sharks in the Skagerrak.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, about 15 juvenile sharks were reported from that area over the past 150 years \u2013 a finding which the paper notes is \u201cremarkable, as this particular life stage was previously only associated with either high Arctic or deep-sea waters of the continental slopes.\u201d Notably, their parents didn\u2019t seem to be with them: \u201cSkagerrak [\u2026] is not commonly occupied by adult Greenland sharks,\u201d the paper points out.\u00a0<\/p>\n This might be a problem. Like all the potential pupping grounds identified in the study, Skagerrak doesn\u2019t seem to fulfill every criterion for a shark nursery<\/a> \u2013 traditionally, they need to be comparatively full of sharks (go figure) who tend to stay for a while and come back year-on-year. Proving those to be the case anywhere, for a shark as elusive as the Greenland, would be a challenge.<\/p>\n But at least now, we have a starting point. \u201cWe recommend [\u2026] using, for example, satellite tracking and environmental DNA technologies,\u201d the paper concludes, as well as standardizing data collection on Greenland sharks to \u201cprovide larger and more homogenous datasets.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll combined, this study provides new insights into the life history of the Greenland shark,\u201d the team write, \u201cwhich will aid the development of targeted conservation measures.\u201d<\/p>\n