Are sharks older than trees? Yes, by about 65 million years.

• ✓Natural History Museum — shark evolution 450-million-year timeline
• ✓Smithsonian Magazine — sharks are older than trees

Sharks are older than trees. Let that sink in. Sharks have existed for roughly 450 million years, which means they predate the first trees — which appeared around 385 million years ago — by about 65 million years. While early sharks were already patrolling ancient oceans, the land was still a bare, rootless world — no canopies, no forests, no shade. Trees had not been invented yet. The planet had to catch up to them. Sharks survived every mass extinction Earth has ever thrown at life — including the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. They were here before the forests grew, and they are still here now. That is not just survival. That is dominance written in deep time.