{"id":532167,"date":"2026-04-15T12:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532167\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:33:08","slug":"sligo-very-rare-greenland-shark-discovered-washed-up-on-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532167\/","title":{"rendered":"Sligo: Very rare Greenland shark discovered washed up on beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The IWDG said the Greenland shark is the longest living vertebrate in the world with a life span of several centuries; the oldest recorded specimen was&#8221; over half a millennium in age&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A large species, the shark typically reach lengths of 4m to 6m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The shark lives in one of the most extreme environments with temperatures frequently falling below zero, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/articles\/4XR3dG1nHXGXtyj1Rt262sv\/greenland-shark\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">yet this shark thrives.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Its slow way of life means it expends little energy when scavenging for food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Powerful suction means this shark can suck food into its mouth from over a metre away. It finds its food using its sense of smell, which is highly developed, and it&#8217;s thought this compensates for the shark being blind. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Known to reach sexual maturity about 150-years-old, the shark gives birth to its pups after a gestational period of eight to 18 years. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The male shark discovered in Sligo is said to &#8220;have had very developed claspers, perhaps on the brink of maturity&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The IWDG said the Greenland shark is the longest living vertebrate in the world with a life span&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-532167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}