From turtles that travelled with Darwin to jellyfish that can live forever, here are
12 of the oldest living creatures on the planet!
12.
Macaws
Macaws are the largest type of parrot and their bright colors are perfect for their
life in the forest!
Native to South America, these birds can live anywhere between 60 and 80 years!
Almost all macaw species are either threatened, critically endangered or extinct.
Because of their long life, pet macaws are often included in wills and end of life plans
as they can easily outlive their owners.
The oldest living macaw is a foul-mouthed blue macaw named Charlie the Curser.
She was supposedly born in 1899 and is still alive to this day.
Charlie’s current owner claims to have purchased the bird from Winston Churchill’s estate
after Churchill died in 1965.
He also claims the bird was Winston Churchill’s favorite pet.
This claim, however, is hotly debated.
What is certain that whoever owned Charlie during World War II taught her dirty phrases
about Hitler and the Nazis.
Later on, she was kept in the back of a shop where all of the workers would teach her all
kinds of swear words.
In fact, Charlie’s potty mouth was such a problem that the current owner couldn’t
sell Charlie in as he had originally planned.
Now Charlie is much older and rarely makes any noise so it is hard to say.
Journalists have tried to interview her to no avail.
11.
Elephants
Elephants, depending on the species, can live up to 60 or 70 years in ideal conditions.
However, it is difficult to really determine their average age as they face many threats
in the wild from poachers, and in Asia many are used as labor animals so they tend to
live about 40 years.
A recent study in Zimbabwe found that female African elephants can potentially remain fertile
up until their death.
Another study in 2008 suggested that wild elephants do much better than elephants in
zoos, whose lifespan is only about 20 years which is quite shocking.
Despite all that, the oldest elephant on record was a captive Asian elephant named Lin Wang.
Wang died in a Taiwanese zoo at the age of 86.
Over those nearly nine decades, Wang managed to live a very adventurous life.
He moved supplies for the Japanese army during World War II before the Chinese captured him
along with a dozen other elephants.
He survived a trek from China to Burma that killed six elephants.
While in Burma, he helped build monuments and joined a circus.
In 1949, Wang was taken to Taiwan with people fleeing the new Communist regime in China.
Of the original 13 captured elephants, he was the last one alive.
He was placed in the zoo where he lived until he died in 2003.
10.
Long-finned Eel
The long-finned eel is native to New Zealand and Australia.
They often live up to sixty years old.
Two interesting facts about these eels.
First, they only breed once and only at the end of their lives.
They leave their rivers to go to the sea to breed.
Secondly, the Maori word for eel is “tuna”.
The oldest living long-finned eel is recorded to have been 106 years old.
It’s believed that their long lifespans come from the fact that these eels grow really
slowly and have a slow metabolism.
9.
Tuatara
We usually refer to an old person or thing as a “dinosaur”.
When it comes to tuataras, it is less a metaphor and more of an accurate description.
The two species of this lizard are the surviving members of an older one that flourished 200
million years ago.
Tuataras are living dinosaurs!
They are also the longest-lived vertebrates.
Some individuals have lived between 100 and 200 years old!
Currently, a tuatara named Henry is the oldest of its kind in New Zealand.
Henry is 120 years old and lives at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery.
He’s still fertile in his old age, successfully becoming a father at the age of 111.
In 2015, Henry had the honor of meeting Prince Harry of Wales.
8.
Red Sea Urchins
Found only in the Pacific Ocean, mostly along North America’s west coast, the red sea
urchin lives in shallow, sometimes rocky waters.
They prefer calmer waters to wavy areas.
What makes these spiky sea creatures so interesting is their long life span.
Some specimens have been discovered to be more than 200 years old.
However, the average life span appears to be more like fifty years.
Nature is rough and many animals are not able to live to their full potential.
Another interesting thing is that they seem to show no signs of aging.
A 100-year-old red sea urchin is just as likely to reproduce as a 10-year-old, if not more
so.
In a way, they are practically immortal!!
7.
Tortoises
Tortoises are one of the longest living vertebrates on Earth.
There are multiple examples of tortoises living to old age.
In fact, the average age of a tortoise is 150-years-old.
A Galapagos tortoise brought back from Darwin’s expedition, named Harriet, died in 2006 at
the age of 175.
She was considered the last representative of Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle.
She died of heart failure in the Australia Zoo in Queensland.
Thomas, a giant tortoise, was the oldest ever known in Britain.
He died at the age of 130.
He might have lived longer if it hadn’t been for a rat bite on his leg that became
infected.
Jonathan from the island of St. Helena was a gift to the govorner in the 1880’s and
is at least 186 years old.
Tu’i Malila of Tonga Island died at age 188.
Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise in India, lived to 255 before passing away in 2006.
Supposedly, General Robert Clive, an important member of the East India Company, first owned
Adwaita.
After Clive’s death, Adwaita moved from owner to owner before landing in an Indian
zoo in 1875.
Carbon dating conducted on his shell confirmed his age.
If those tortoises could talk, they would have a lot of stories to tell!!
6.
Bowhead Whale
A product of their cold environment, bowhead whales are notoriously long-lived.
In 2007, Eskimos harvested a bowhead whale during a subsistence hunt monitored by the
International Whaling Commission.
A harpoon point was discovered in the whale’s neck.
Using the harpoon, scientists estimated that the whale was at least 130 years old.
The point came from a New England factory active around 1880.
The whale’s large size also suggested an advanced age.
It’s believed that the bowhead whale’s ability to live about 200 years is partly
due to their slow metabolism, a must-have adaptation to survive the ice cold waters
of the Arctic.
Scientists also discovered bowhead genes carry a mutation that suggests a greater ability
to repair DNA and discard abnormal cells.
Their cells regenerate themselves, a natural anti-aging mechanism!
As well as being so long-lived, the bowhead has the largest mouth of any animal.
5.
Ming the Clam
The ocean quahog is a marine bivalve mollusk, commonly called a clam.
Native to the North Atlantic Ocean, and made famous by Family Guy, it is commercially harvested
as a food source.
These clams commonly reach ages in excess of 400 years.
In 2006, scientists harvested a bunch of ocean quahogs off the coast of Iceland.
They froze their specimens and took them back to the lab for climate change research.
It was there they realized they had accidentally killed one of the oldest creatures on the
planet.
One of the clams, they discovered, was 507 years old.
They dubbed the clam “Ming” because it was alive during the Ming Chinese Dynasty.
4.
Greenland Sharks
It seems like a lot of old things live in cold waters.
Greenland sharks are native to the Arctic and the journal Science published a study
demonstrating that these sharks could live to be centuries old!
They are scavengers and are attracted to the scent of rotting meat.
They primarily live in deeper ocean depths and they went viral when it was reported that
radiocarbon testing on the eye lens of 28 female sharks led scientists to conclude that
these sharks live to at least 272 years.
One massive Greenland shark found in the North Atlantic was estimated to be 512 years old.
They estimated it was born in 1505, when King Henry VIII ended his engagement to Catherine
of Aragon.
This shark was a staggering 18 feet.
They can grow to be up to 24 feet (7 meters) long and weigh up to 2,645 pounds (1200 kg).
3.
Oregon’s Giant Honey Mushroom
Normally, we think of mushrooms as small, the perfect size for salads and side dishes.
However, the next time you’re looking at those white button mushrooms or portobello
caps at the grocery store, know that one of the oldest creatures ever is a mushroom that
occupies 2,384 acres in Oregon’s Blue Mountains.
To put that in perspective, that’s 1,665 football fields or nearly four square miles!
This enormous organism is a honey mushroom, or Armillaria ostoyae.
When it was discovered in 1998, scientists heralded it as a new record holder for the
title of the world's largest known organism.
At the time, it was believed by most that the largest organism was the 110-foot long(
33.5-meter), 200-ton blue whale.
Estimating age for a fungus is a little difficult.
Scientists had to go off of the honey mushroom’s growth rate.
Based on that, they estimate the fungus to be 2,400 years old.
However, because growth rates are more than capable of changing, the mushroom could be
as ancient as 8,650 years.
That makes it one of the oldest living organisms as well as largest.
How did they even come across this thing?
Forestry scientists discovered it when they mapped out the population of honey mushrooms
in eastern Oregon.
This was important information because honey mushrooms spread a pathogen that kills trees.
They paired fungal samples in petri dishes to see if they fused.
This is a sign that they come from the same genetic individual.
In this way, they determined that one large mushroom lives under the ground in Oregon,
sending up smaller mushrooms above the surface as the only sign that it’s there.
2.
Sponges
Now back to frigid waters, only this time in Antarctica.
Because of low temperatures that lead to extremely slow growth rates, Antarctic sponges are some
of the longest living creatures on planet Earth.
Some scientists estimate the oldest specimens are 1,550 years old.
However, some scientists believe these sponges, especially the Hexactinellid species, can
live up to 15,000 years.
Also called the “Glass Sponge”, these creatures would have been alive when man was
still building the pyramids.
A recent explosion in population size has renewed interest in them.
They have an amazing ability to store carbon, making the glass sponge an integral part of
future climate change.
Glass sponges are the most unique of sponges.
The majority of its cells are fused into a single multinucleated mega-cell wrapped around
a mineral skeleton.
This unique structure helps to propagate electrical impulses that it uses to filter the water
for food.
In fact, it’s similar to how the human nervous system works and gives the glass sponge a
huge jump in reaction time compared to other sponges.
1.
Immortal Jellyfish
This species of jellyfish doesn’t really have a lifespan because it is, for lack of
a better word, immortal.
When this jellyfish reaches a mature adult stage, it mates.
Once it has done that, it reverts to an immature polyp colony stage until it matures again.
Then it repeats the cycle.
This process is known as “transdifferentiation”.
This endless cycle means there is no natural limit to its lifespan.
Because of this, the number of individuals is steadily on the rise and they’ve spread
from their home in the Caribbean to all over the world.
Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute called it a “worldwide
silent invasion”.
These jellyfish are bell-shaped and grow to a max of 4.5 millimeters (0.18 inches).
The discovery of their supernatural ability has provoked a firestorm of discussion among
scientists.
Some believe that if its transdifferentiation could somehow be applied to humans, then we,
too, could attain immortality.
Or, at the least, improve the quality of life in our final stages.
Thanks for watching!
Be sure to subscribe and see you next time!!