Greenland shark: Get the facts about the Greenland

Get the facts about the Greenland shark, the world's longest-lived vertebrate. Learn about its habitat, adaptations, and conservation status. Far less well-known than the polar bear or the orca, the Greenland shark is, nonetheless, an important top predator of Arctic waters just like them. Greenland sharks can be found cruising surface waters in the Arctic—Greenland included—but we now know they actually range much farther south in the Atlantic Basin. But Greenland shark habitat changes with geography on account of their preferred temperature range: As a cold-adapted fish, though, their presence at lower latitudes is a deepwater one—some 4,000 or so feet (~1,200 meters) down or deeper. In 1988, a submersible ROV filmed an estimated 20-foot specimen 7,218 feet (2,200 ... Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays) > Squaliformes (Sleeper and dogfish sharks) > Somniosidae (Sleeper sharks) Etymology: Somniosus: Latin for sleepy, reflecting Lesueur’s surmise that these sharks are slow or sluggish because of their relatively small fins (hence the name sleeper sharks) (See ETYFish); microcephalus: micro-, from mikros (Gr.), small; cephalus, from kephale (Gr.), head, allusion not explained, perhaps referring to its short, rounded snout compared with other sharks then ...