• Question: Which animal lives for the longest?

    Asked by ScribbleNoughtJnr to Ashley, Bernard, Carsten, MariaMagdalena, Monique on 15 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Maria Magdalena Razalan

      Maria Magdalena Razalan answered on 15 Nov 2015:

      Hello ScribbleNoughtJnr!
      Apparently the oldest animal ever studied is a type of clam, Arctica islandica, from the North Atlantic Ocean, which apparently was over 500 years old! It was nicknamed “Ming”, after the chinese dynasty that was ruling exactly in the period where the clam was born (imagine that Leonardo Da Vinci was working on the Mona Lisa at that time, and Galileo Galilei wasn’t even born yet!). In addition to this clam, other long-living animals are bowhead whales (they found one aged 130 years old!), tortoises (one in India lived more than 150 years!), Koi goldfish (Hanako, found in Japan, was 226 years old), some type of birds (cranes, parrots & flamingos, apparently!) and Elephants (up to 70 years old!)

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