This Queensland study which was published on Friday has found a number of errors in the way the ages of Elasmobranchii have been measured and that they have been underestimated by an average of 18 years.

A popular researcher from the James Cook University Dr. Alastair Harry did this experiment on more than 53 different populations of sharks and rays, revealed the results of this famous study.

He in his study mentioned that a grey nurse shark on an average can live up to 40 years, twice as long as had been estimated earlier. “And the age of New Zealand porbeagle sharks had been underestimated by an average of 22 years,” he stated.

“Across the cases I studied, age was underestimated by an average of 18 years and up to 34 years in one instance.”

In general, people measure the age of sharks by counting the rings in their vertebrae. Dr. Harry explained errors in calculations appeared to have occurred owing to growth rings ceasing to form or becoming unreliable beyond a certain size or age.

Meanwhile, the age calculation for these animals, which often end up trapped in fishermen’s nets, is important for the management of marine resources, which now is a serious problem in Australia.

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