Longest living animal?

[somebody]

are sea turtles the longest living animal on earth? Is there any organism(animal, insect.....) that out lives turtles? If yes then how long?

[Govind]

Turtles? I thought it was the tortoise that lived the longest.

[Zythryn]

I believe Govind is correct. More specifically I think the giant tortoise.

[jackson33]

are sea turtles the longest living animal on earth? Is there any organism(animal, insect.....) that out lives turtles? If yes then how long?

 

 

agree with above; some eggs can hatch after centuries of existence.

 

shortest living; is a S. American mosquito which from larva hatching to sex and death can be 20 seconds.

[Ganoderma]

i would also bet the above, the problem is the oldest known turtles are still living so we dont really know how long they can live. and sea turtles have only been tracked for X amount of years. who knows what other animals also have not been recorded long.

[jackson33]

its my understanding the shell of a turtle will give the age.

[ronthepon]

It could be the slow metabolism rate, could be good somatic gene repairatory mechanisms, could be low protein cross linking... The ageing process, whatever it is, is slower.

[InfiniteNow]

What about rainforest as a living organism?

 

Anyway, per the oldest:

 

Oldest LivingThing

October, 1999; 250-million-year-old bacteria were found in ancient sea salt beneath Carlsbad, New Mexico. The microscopic organisms were revived in a laboratory after being in 'suspended animation', encased in a hard-shelled spore, for an estimated 250 million years. The species has not been identified, but is referred to as strain 2-9-3, or B. permians.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Oldest living thing which can reasonably be called an "animal."

 

Possibly Lake Sturgeons, which have been recorded up to 150 years old.

 

Otherwise, going with tortoise. Oldest one recorded was 188.

 

Maybe call it a tie.

 

Oooo! Bowhead whales up to 250, possibly. That's an old critter.

 

TFS

[Ganoderma]

bacteria are not animals are they? rainforests definatly are not.

 

the tuatara is said to live 100ish possibly more.

[InfiniteNow]

Thanks for seeing my point ganoderma. Our subjective labels are really irrelevant, and animal or non, it's all life. :)

[Govind]

I read tortoises are the oldest..because of thr slow metabolism rate...and cause of the fact...that they breathe like...once in a minute!

[Rade]

are sea turtles the longest living animal on earth? Is there any organism(animal, insect.....) that out lives turtles? If yes then how long?

Forget about turtles--the hydra may never die from "natural causes" --see here:http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/biochem/steele/PDFs/Hydra_senescence_paper.pdf

[Larv]

Thanks for seeing my point ganoderma. Our subjective labels are really irrelevant, and animal or non, it's all life.

In that respect, and stretching it a little further, one could say that genes are the oldest living things. Some of them are hundreds of millions of years old. (Of course this begs the question: Are genes alive?)

 

—Larv

[Ganoderma]

i think the question was what thing in the animal kindom lives the longest: birth-death. genes die with the body.

[Boerseun]

I think in that sense, the oldest living thing will have to be bacteria.

 

Seeings as they reproduce asexually, the original bacteria simply splits in two, both parts being seperate but equal parts of the original, and they eventually split, etc.; any given bacteria is, indeed, the original bacteria, and millions, maybe even billions, of years old.

[ronthepon]

Further, on a similar line, Knowing that 'only life gives rise to life', then I'd say that every living thing (which originated from the first, primordial one) is of the same age!:hihi: