A Greenland Shark, Somniosus microcephalus, which was found stranded on a beach near Newlyn Harbour in Cornwall, England, in March 2022, has been found to have died of Meningitis. The Shark, which was spotted on the beach on 13 March and recovered by a recreational boating company two days later, after washing back out to sea, was subjected to a necropsy (the term 'autopsy' is only used when the subject is Human) by the Cornwall Marine Pathology Team, which discovered it had been suffering from an inflamation of the membrane surrounding the brain (Meningitis). Later analysis of tissue taken from this membrane found that it was infected with the Gammaproteobacterium Pasteurella, known to cause Meningitis but mostly associated with domestic Mammals and never before reported from a Greenland Shark.
The Shark was found to be a female, and is calculated to have been about 100 years old, and therefore considered to have been a juvenile in a species that is thought to be able to be able to live for over 400 years. Greenland Sharks are a coldwater Sleeper Shark species found in the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans. They are piscivores (Fish eaters) and never attack Humans (species of Shark which target Marine Mammals will sometimes attack Humans, though they usually spit us out), and for the most part are not consumed by Humans either, due to the high levels of trimethylamine oxides (which are both toxic and foul smelling) in their flesh, though in Iceland Greenland Shark meat detoxified by fermenting is eaten as a delicacy, kæstur hákarl.
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