How old is the oldest animal?

Answer 1

The Giant Tortoise seems to be the animal with the longest life span.

For years, the oldest known living animal was a Giant Galapagos Tortoise named Harriet. The giant tortoise was taken from the Galapagos Islands by naturalist Charles Darwin in 1835 as a personal pet during his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle. On that voyage was a young naval officer, John Clements Wickham. After studying Harriet whilst formulating his theory of evolution, Darwin handed the tortoise on to Wickham when the latter sailed for Brisbane to take up a post as police magistrate. Over the years, the tortoise was carefully tended, and in 1958, was moved to naturalist David Fleay's wildlife park on the Gold Coast. She was moved to Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast in 1987 where she enjoyed celebrity status until her death on 23 June 2006.

Answer 2

The oldest koi fish lived to be approximately 226 years old. Adwaita the Greek tortoise lived to be 255. Jeanne Calment was the oldest human at 122.

These are rather brief lifespans compared to certain species of black coral which have lived 4,265 years. Prometheus the pine tree lived to be 4,862.

Some bacteria have been revived into metabolism after several hundred million years.

Finally, certain species are considered to be biologically immortal, that is, the mortality rate does not increase over time. Biologically immortal organisms including aspen trees, hydra, and lobsters have no higher chance of dying when they are born than when they are in old age.

Answer 3

That honor is usually accorded to the Galapagos Tortoise, which regularly tops 100 years. However, the occasional human has lived longer, and we don't really know all that much about creatures of the deep water. Crustaceans don't seem to have "natural" lifespans, but just molt and grow until something eats them. Every once in a while somebody dredges up a giant lobster and estimates of its age can go into the hundreds of years, although these are founded on sheerest speculation about growth rates.

Animals which reproduce asexually can, in a sense, be said to be the same as their distant "ancestors," so, discounting mutations, sponges and amoebas and such can be said to be millions of years old.

Answer 4

The oldest animal on record is a species of ocean quahog clam that lived to be over 500 years old. Other long-lived animals include the Greenland shark (up to 400 years) and the Aldabra giant tortoise (over 250 years).

Answer 5

The oldest animal in the world is 176-year-old tortoise, named Jonathan(76 in the picture).