You’ve probably seen it. A grainy, ghostly silhouette drifting through freezing, pitch-black water, looking more like a floating slab of wet stone than a living animal. Most pictures of a Greenland shark look ancient because the sharks themselves are, quite literally, relics. We are talking about an animal that might have been swimming around when the Mayflower hit Plymouth Rock. It’s hard to wrap your head around that. While we’re obsessed with the speed of Great Whites or the size of Megalodon fossils, the Somniosus microcephalus is just out there, chilling in the North Atlantic, moving at the pace of a slow walk.
Honestly, they look rough. Most photos show a skin texture that resembles sandpaper or scarred concrete, often covered in weird, pale parasites dangling from their eyeballs. It isn’t pretty. But there is something deeply unsettling and beautiful about seeing a creature that has mastered the art of doing absolutely nothing quickly.
What These Photos Actually Tell Us About Age
If you look closely at high-resolution pictures of a Greenland shark, you’ll notice they don't have the sleek, muscular definition of a tropical shark. They look soft. Almost bloated. That’s because they live in a world where energy is everything, and they can’t afford to waste a single calorie.
Researchers like Julius Nielsen have done the heavy lifting to figure out just how old these guys get. They used radiocarbon dating on the eye lenses—since the core of the eye forms at birth and doesn't change—and found individuals that were likely between 272 and 512 years old. Think about that. There is a shark alive right now that could have been a "teenager" during the French Revolution.
When you see a photo of a large Greenland shark, you aren't just looking at a fish; you're looking at a centuries-old biological record. They grow about one centimeter a year. So, if you see a picture of one that is five meters long, you’re looking at a grandfather of the ocean. It’s a slow-motion life. They don't even reach sexual maturity until they're about 150. Imagine waiting a century and a half just to hit puberty.
The Eye Parasite Mystery
One thing that almost always catches people off guard in pictures of a Greenland shark is the gunk on their eyes. If you zoom in on a clear shot, you’ll often see a white, worm-like crustacean attached to the cornea. This is Ommatokoita elongata. It’s a copepod parasite that eats the shark’s eye tissue, eventually leaving the shark partially or totally blind.
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- It sounds horrific.
- But here is the weird part: the sharks don't seem to care.
In the deep, dark Arctic waters, sight is basically useless anyway. They rely on smell and electroreceptors to find carcasses on the seafloor. Some scientists used to theorize that these parasites might be bioluminescent, acting like a lure to bring prey closer to the shark's mouth, but that hasn't really been proven. Most likely, it’s just a hitchhiker that the shark is too slow to get rid of. It’s a symbiotic relationship that leans heavily toward the "creepy" side of the spectrum.
Finding Them Is a Nightmare
You don't just go out and snap pictures of a Greenland shark on a weekend trip. They love the cold. They prefer water that is basically at the freezing point, ranging from -1 to 10 degrees Celsius. To find them, photographers usually have to head to places like Somerset Island in Nunavut, Canada, or the fjords of Greenland and Norway.
Underwater photographer Doug Perrine, who has captured some of the most famous images of the species, had to deal with ice floes and sub-zero temperatures just to get a few seconds of footage. Most of the time, the water is so murky or the light is so dim that the photos come out blue-ish or gray. This "lo-fi" aesthetic is actually part of why the shark has such a cult following online. It looks like a cryptid. It looks like something that shouldn't exist in 2026.
They Aren't Just "Deep Sea" Anymore
While they are famous for diving deep—down to 2,200 meters—they actually come to the surface more often than we thought. In 2022, a Greenland shark was spotted off the coast of Belize. Belize! That’s a long way from the Arctic. It was hanging out on a coral reef, which completely baffled the researchers on the boat.
This discovery changed how we view their range. It turns out they might be everywhere in the deep ocean, using the cold "rivers" of deep-water currents to travel the globe. So, while most pictures of a Greenland shark show them against a backdrop of ice, we might eventually see photos of them passing through tropical trenches.
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They are scavengers, mostly. They eat seals, but they also eat whatever falls to the bottom. There have been records of moose, horses, and even remains of polar bears found in their stomachs. They aren't "hunters" in the way we think of a Great White. They are more like the garbage collectors of the abyss. If it’s dead and it sinks, the Greenland shark will eventually find it.
Why the Meat Is Toxic
You can’t just catch and eat a Greenland shark, and the reason is visible in their physiology. Because they live in such cold water, their tissues are loaded with trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). This acts like an internal antifreeze. If you eat the meat raw, the TMAO breaks down into trimethylamine, which is basically a neurotoxin. It makes you "shark drunk"—you get dizzy, you can't walk, and you might have hallucinations.
The only way people eat it is by making Hákarl, the famous Icelandic fermented shark. They bury the meat in gravel for months to let the toxins seep out, then hang it to dry. It smells like ammonia and old gym socks. Even the photos of people trying to eat it tell a story of regret.
Modern Conservation Challenges
We don't actually know how many of them are left. Because they live so long and grow so slowly, any pressure on the population is a huge deal. They often end up as bycatch in trawl nets meant for halibut or shrimp. If you kill a 200-year-old shark today, you're removing an animal that won't be "replaced" by a breeding adult for another century.
Photographers and researchers are now using non-invasive ways to track them. Instead of tagging them with bulky gear that might hurt their soft skin, they use Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV) stations. This allows us to get pictures of a Greenland shark in its natural state without a diver scaring it off or a hook in its mouth.
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The nuance here is that we are still guessing. We are looking at a creature through a tiny window of time, while its own timeline spans centuries. Our data is a blink of an eye to them.
Practical Ways to Learn More
If you are genuinely fascinated by these living fossils, don't just look at random image searches. Check out the work of the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Conservation and Research Group (GEERG). They are the ones doing the actual diving and tagging.
You can also look into the research coming out of the University of Copenhagen. They lead the pack in the aging studies that made this shark famous. If you’re a photographer, realize that capturing pictures of a Greenland shark requires specialized cold-water training and a lot of patience. It’s not a hobby for the faint of heart.
Next Steps for the Curious:
- Search for "Julius Nielsen Greenland Shark" to see the actual scientific photos used in the age-dating study. These aren't just pretty pictures; they are the evidence for the 400-year lifespan.
- Look up "Hákarl processing" if you want to see how the toxic meat is turned into food—it’s a wild visual process that involves a lot of sand and patience.
- Watch "Blue Planet II" or similar high-end nature documentaries for the best motion-picture footage of these animals in the wild.
- Follow Arctic expedition photographers like Paul Nicklen, who often capture the intersection of sea ice and the life beneath it.
There’s no "quick fix" to understanding an animal that lives for four centuries. You just have to appreciate the slow, steady mystery of it all.