Sharks have existed on Earth for longer than trees.

The shark lineage stretches back more than 400 million years, with fossil scales and teeth placing early sharks in the oceans during the Late Ordovician and Early Devonian periods. Trees, by contrast, didn’t appear until around 385 million years ago, when plants like Archaeopteris first evolved woody trunks and branching canopies.

That gap of tens of millions of years means sharks were already established ocean predators long before anything resembling a forest existed on land. Sharks have since survived all five of Earth’s mass extinctions, including the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, making their body plan one of evolution’s most durable designs.