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These animals outlive humans: Top 10 longest living critters
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This Nov. 6, 1987 file photo shows an 11-foot sturgeon, weighing nearly a half-ton, found dead in Seattle's Lake Washington, near Kirkland, Wash. In the area, tales have long persisted of a huge, duck-eating "monster." A member of this bottom-feeder fish species is reported to have lived to be 152. (AP/Jim Bates)
M
ore than a dozen animals live longer than we do. A new study estimates that at least one Greenland shark lived about 392 years, making it the longest-living animal with a backbone.
Here are the animals that the scientific longevity database AnAge says have lived the longest. Many of these live in the cold and in water.
The longest-living human reached 122.5 years.
1. Hexactinellid sponge: One of these Antarctic sponges lived for an estimated 15,000 years.
2. Epibenthic sponge: Another Antarctic sponge that is generally estimated to live 1,550 years.
3. Ocean quahog: This clam, nicknamed "Ming," had its rings measured and it had lived 507 years.
4. Greenland shark: A new study estimates the age of one of these sharks at 392, but it could have been somewhere between 512 and 272 years old when it died.
5. Bowhead whale: One male bowhead living in the Arctic waters was estimated to be 211 years old when it died.
6. Rougheye rockfish: These red fish of the North Pacific have lived to be 205 years old and show little effects of aging in life.
7. Red sea urchin: The spiny critters also don't seem to age much and are estimated to live about 200 years.
8. Galapagos tortoise: These slow moving creatures seen by Charles Darwin have lived as long as 177 years.
9. Shortraker rockfish: These orange-pink fish have lived up to 157 years.
10. Aldabra tortoise and Lake sturgeon: A tortoise that died at a zoo was 152 years old; unconfirmed reports put some of these tortoises living up to 180 years. One lake sturgeon, a bottom-feeder fish, is reported to have lived to be 152.
