{"id":296225,"date":"2026-02-13T15:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/296225\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T15:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:49:13","slug":"this-prehistoric-apex-predator-is-older-than-trees-the-atlantic-ocean-and-even-the-north-star-a-biologist-explains-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/296225\/","title":{"rendered":"This prehistoric apex predator is older than trees, the Atlantic Ocean and even the North Star. A biologist explains why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As a group, sharks emerged roughly 450 million years ago in the Late Ordovician, back when Earth was covered by a vast ocean known as Panthalassa.<\/p>\n<p>This not only makes sharks older than trees, which first appeared 385 million years ago, but older than the North Star, the Atlantic Ocean and even Saturn\u2019s Rings!<\/p>\n<p>Not a lot is known about the earliest sharks. So far, palaeontologists have only found a few isolated scales of these enigmatic predators; but we know they belong to sharks \u2013 or at least shark-like fish \u2013 because they look very similar to the scales of living sharks.<\/p>\n<p>Even after 450 million years of evolution, sharks have seldom changed. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/prehistoric-life\/what-was-the-first-ever-shark\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first confirmed shark, Cladoselache<\/a>, lived at the same time as the first trees and looks just like today\u2019s sharks.<\/p>\n<p>The same can\u2019t be said for trees, though: they\u2019ve changed a lot since they took root in the Middle Devonian, evolving from 8m-tall, fern-like trees known as Wattieza into towering redwoods that exceed heights of 115m.<\/p>\n<p>While sharks may have emerged before trees, it\u2019s the latter that holds the title of the longest-living organisms. The oldest-known, still-living, individual tree is a 4,857-year-old Californian bristlecone pine known as Methuselah. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a group, sharks emerged roughly 450 million years ago in the Late Ordovician, back when Earth was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-296225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}