The black coral Antipatharia in the Gulf of Mexico may live more than 2,000 years. The Antarctic sponge Cinachyra antarctica has an extremely slow growth rate in the low temperatures of the Southern Ocean. One specimen has been estimated to be 1,550 years old.
Estimates of sponge longevity vary quite a bit, but are often in the thousands of years. One study in the journal Aging Research Reviews notes a deep-sea sponge from the species Monorhaphis chuni lived to be 11,000 years old. Yes, a sponge is an animal—and it has a remarkable life-span.
There are some animals that can live for 1000's of years. The jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula is biologically immortal and could, under ideal conditions, live for 1000s of years. After sexually reproducing, this jellyfish can revert back to the immature polyp stage (back into a “child”).
Some corals can live for up to 5,000 years, making them the longest living animals on Earth. Scientific studies of elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) in the Caribbean and off the coast of Florida show that coral genotypes can survive longer than expected.
Greenland Shark
Greenland sharks live for between 300 and 500 years and are the longest-living vertebrate.
Aquatic animals. Glass sponges found in the East China Sea and Southern Ocean have been estimated to be more than 10,000 years old.
How Long Do Snakes Live? Snakes reach sexual maturity within two to four years, depending on the species and living conditions. In perfect conditions, adult snakes live anywhere from 20 to 30 years, with natural predators and the encroachment of humans severely limiting the number of years most snakes live.
Animals of the Stone Age include the cave bear, dire wolf, Glyptodon, marsupial lion, Mastodon, Smilodon and the woolly mammoth. Stone Age animals co-existed with early humans and their ancestors, who by the end of the Stone Age had spread across Eurasia and into The Americas.
Turritopsis dohrnii
The jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii has no brain and heart and is considered the only immortal creature on Earth; it lives in tropical waters.
Coelacanths, first swam in the ocean about 400 million years ago and were believed to be extinct until one was caught off South Africa in 1938.
The Sign Eviota, Eviota sigillata, a tiny coral reef fish, completes its entire life cycle within an eight week period. This species has the shortest lifespan of any vertebrate.
Age gap. Some scientists believe that within the next few decades, it could be possible for humans to live 1,000 years or more. Normally, as time passes, our cells undergo changes: Our DNA mutates, cells stop dividing, and harmful junk—by-products of cellular activity—builds up.
However, because jellyfish are soft-bodied and almost all water, jellyfish fossils are incredibly rare. Of those that do exist, the oldest-known jellyfish fossils, found in Utah, date to 505 million years ago and have enough detail to show clear relationships with some modern species of jellyfish.
Sponges were among the earliest animals. While chemical compounds from sponges are preserved in rocks as old as 700 million years, molecular evidence points to sponges developing even earlier.
100,000 years ago, giant sloths, wombats and cave hyenas roamed the world. What drove them all extinct? Turn the clock back 1.8 million years, and the world was full of fantastic beasts: In North America, lions, dire wolves and giant sloths prowled the land.
Mammoths, Siberian lions, Naumann's elephants, moose, Great Elks, Yabe's giant deer, wild cattle, bison, asses, horses, bears, wolves, tigers roamed the Paleolithic landscape in Japan … until around 12,000 years ago when they suddenly disappeared.
Tortoise
If you want a pet for life, a tortoise is one of the best options out there. Many species of tortoise live for over a century, like the Sulcata Tortoise, Leopard Tortoise, or the Egyptian Tortoise––so chances are this critter may even outlive its human owners.
Sturdy turtles
Slow and steady really does win the race. Turtles have been known to live for centuries, and researches have found that their organs don't seem to break down over time. The New York Times reports that turtles might even be able to live indefinitely if they are able to avoid predators and disease.
Among the most recognizable Eurasian species are the woolly mammoth, steppe mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, European hippopotamuses, aurochs, steppe bison, cave lion, cave bear, cave hyena, Homotherium, Irish elk, giant polar bears, woolly rhinoceros, Merck's rhinoceros, narrow-nosed rhinoceros, and Elasmotherium.
In an evolutionary sense, birds are a living group of dinosaurs because they descended from the common ancestor of all dinosaurs. Other than birds, however, there is no scientific evidence that any dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, or Triceratops, are still alive.
"The discovery of this new fossil suggests to us that the evolution of multicellular animals had occurred at least one billion years ago and that early events prior to the evolution of animals may have occurred in freshwater like lakes rather than the ocean," Wellman said.
Wadjet, also spelled Wadjit, also called Buto, Uto, or Edjo, cobra goddess of ancient Egypt. Depicted as a cobra twined around a papyrus stem, she was the tutelary goddess of Lower Egypt.
While studies showed that snakes originated in the Paleocene Epoch between 65-56 million years ago, the most recent discovery dates the oldest snakes back to 167 million years ago. The remains of the oldest recorded snake, aged 167 million years ago, were found in Southern England.
Abstract. Although average human life expectancy is rising, the maximum lifespan is not increasing. Leading demographers claim that human lifespan is fixed at a natural limit around 122 years.