crookedindifference:

jasencomstock:

emilyatlast:

allcreatures:

A diver swims alongside a Greenland shark, a rarely-seen species that looks like it has been etched from stone. They can survive for more than 200 years at depths of up to 600 metres under Arctic ice. They grow to 23-feet long and are so fearsome they have even been known to eat polar bears. Picture: Doug Perrine/Seapics.com/solent

They can live for two hundred years and eat polar bears. What the actual fuck. Nature is awesome. 

its gets cooler.  It’s eyeballs are host to a crustacean parasite that eats its eyes all its life! it’s flesh is poisonous, and eating it gives you a bunch of nerotoxins and acts like extreme drunkenness.  Because the notion of not being able to eat something is impossible for humans to deal with, people in Iceland figured out how to do it:

Hákarl is traditionally prepared by gutting and beheading a Greenland or basking shark and placing it in a shallow hole dug in gravelly-sand, with the now-cleaned cavity resting on a slight hill. The shark is then covered with sand and gravel, and stones are then placed on top of the sand in order to press the shark. The fluids from the shark are in this way pressed out of the body. The shark ferments in this fashion for 6–12 weeks depending on the season.

Following this curing period, the shark is then cut into strips and hung to dry for several months. During this drying period a brown crust will develop, which is removed prior to cutting the shark into small pieces and serving. The modern method is just to press the shark’s meat in a large drained plastic container.

Leave it to humans to eat something that lives for 200 years and is rarely seen.