Which Animals Live The Longest?

How often do you stop and wonder how long a certain animal lives for? Maybe never? Many people don’t even give a second thought to the biology of an animal, like what makes it do the animal-specific things it does? Is it learned, or a trait they’re born with? How long do they live for, and do members of the same species have the same life span?

So many answers, many of which can be answered by this great graphic that charts the life spans of 50 common animals, in a pretty interesting way if I do say so! (see image below)

It’s amazing to see all of the animals that humans outlive, about two thirds of the ones on this chart. While we know human life spans have increased thanks to modern medicine, it’s interesting to think how that could effect the life span of an animal if they regularly went to the doctors? Or are they operating at peak performance and inherently know how to help themselves and stay as healthy as possible until the end? We may never know the answer to these questions, but while we ponder let’s take a closer look at some of the animals listed on this chart.

Let’s start with the animal that has the unfortunate luck of being at the top of this chart for the shortest life span, the house mouse. They only live for a year, much to the delight of many home-owners I’m sure. Cancer is said to be the most common cause of death for mice, along with heart and kidney failure. This means that mice live a very fast paced life and are done nursing after a few weeks and are sexually mature after just 6 weeks. Although mice kept in captivity as pets tend to live twice as long as those in the wild.

Next up is one of my favorite animals, which is why I’m pleased to see that it has much longer life span than I would have guess. The southern two-toes sloth is capable of living for 20 years! Everything about sloths is slow, including their metabolism, which helps them to live for 20 years in the wild, and 30 years while in captivity. Sloths are so slow and have camouflaging that helps them to blend in with their surroundings, so the only time they’re really vulnerable is when they take to the ground for their weekly bowel movement. Yes, you read that right, once a week they have bowel movements thanks to their digestive system also being incredibly slow — who-da thunk it?

Now this next animal’s life span may surprise you, I know it did me! How many years would you guess a flamingo can live for? 25? 30? Well, if you guessed anywhere close to 60 you’d be right! Amazingly these animals outlive some of the biggest animals and fiercest predators on the planet.

And now onto the animal you’ve all been waiting for, the one with the longest life span. This animal lives so long, it’s named after it’s immortality! The immortal jellyfish can live for, well, forever. How is this possible? Well once the jellyfish reaches a sexually mature stage and reproduces it is able to them transform back into it’s sexually-immature juvenile stage and then goes through the process again, and again, and again forever.

How many years does your favorite animal grace this Earth for?