Sharks are older than trees.

The first true trees appeared on Earth about 350 million years ago, making them almost unfathomably old — but not as old as sharks. These aquatic animals predate the Archaeopteris tree by about 50 million years, meaning they’ve been haunting the waters for at least 400 million years. If you consider  “proto-shark” species such as Doliodus problematicus, some put that figure closer to 450 million years. 

Because the only known remnants of those first sharks are tiny scales, no one’s entirely sure what those creatures looked like — but it’s thought they may have been toothless. Other things sharks are older than: Saturn’s rings, dinosaurs, flowers, the Atlantic Ocean, grass, the North Star, Mount Everest, birds, and even soil — when sharks first appeared, bare rock and slime accounted for most of the land.