Meet Frilled Shark, The Over 80-Million-Year-Old Species

Scientists often come across fossils of extinct animal species that have gone extinct with time, either due to a natural calamity (such as the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs) or by hunting (such as the dodo). But several species have been on Earth for millions of years, and continue to tread our waters. One such creature found in the depths of the ocean is called the Frilling Shark. A recent video, which shows the creature swimming in an ocean, has gone viral on Twitter.

Shared by the Twitter handle Oddly Terrifying, the video was captioned: “Frilled shark swimming in the ocean. These sharks are over 80 million years old and swam alongside dinosaurs.” As mentioned in the caption, the frilled shark can be seen swimming in the ocean. It appears as if it’s dead since its mouth stays open during the video and it looks worn out. However, its wiggling tail is proof that the sea creature was very much alive.

The video went viral within a day and gathered more than 14 lakh views between November 25 and 26. Moreover, it also gained over 54.2 thousand likes; and people in the comment section discussed the frilled shark and some even shared interesting facts about the species.

A user wrote, “I looked it up, and they have a lifespan of 25 years. They just never went extinct for 80 million years. Just clarifying to those who got confused with the lifespan.”

Another user commented, “These sharks were eating the things that ate the things that ate the things that ate this fossil protist 90 million years ago.” The user mentioned another tweet that shows what the “thing” meant.

His tweet caption read, “This is a fossil coccolithophore. They are single-celled, photosynthetic phytoplankton. The preserved skeleton you see here is made of calcium carbonate. They are *extremely* abundant in today’s oceans, and a main recipient of CO2. The scale bar at the bottom right is 1 micron.”

Read all the Latest Buzz News here