List of longest-living organisms

For the oldest known life forms, see Earliest known life forms.
The 100 species with longest life-spans recorded and verified. Every circle represents a species, varying in size depending on the maximum life-span recorded. These are positioned from the biggest, the Hexactinellid sponge that reaches 15000 years of age, to the smallest, the komodo dragon, at 62 years of age. They are disposed to form a spiral starting from the top left and ending after a loop roughly in the center. The 8 possible colors of the circles refer to the phylum the species belong to, that are sponges, vascular plants, conifers, chordates, annelids, echinoderms and molluscs. Chordates are divided using symbols positioned over their circles in mammals, reptiles, birds, bony and cartilaginous fish and amphibians. Every circle is labeled with the common denomination of the species.
The 100 species with longest life-spans recorded and verified[1]

This is a list of the longest-living biological organisms: the individual(s) (or in some instances, clones) of a species with the longest natural maximum life spans. For a given species, such a designation may include:

  1. The oldest known individual(s) that are currently alive, with verified ages.
  2. Verified individual record holders, such as the longest-lived human, Jeanne Calment, or the longest-lived domestic cat, Creme Puff.

The definition of "longest-living" used in this article considers only the observed or estimated length of an individual organism's natural lifespan – that is, the duration of time between its birth or conception, or the earliest emergence of its identity as an individual organism, and its death – and does not consider other conceivable interpretations of "longest-living", such as the length of time between the earliest appearance of a species in the fossil record and the present (the historical "age" of the species as a whole), the time between a species' first speciation and its extinction (the phylogenetic "lifespan" of the species), or the range of possible lifespans of a species' individuals. This list includes long-lived organisms that are currently still alive as well as those that are dead.

Determining the length of an organism's natural lifespan is complicated by many problems of definition and interpretation, as well as by practical difficulties in reliably measuring age, particularly for extremely old organisms and for those that reproduce by asexual cloning. In many cases the ages listed below are estimates based on observed present-day growth rates, which may differ significantly from the growth rates experienced thousands of years ago. Identifying the longest-living organisms also depends on defining what constitutes an "individual" organism, which can be problematic, since many asexual organisms and clonal colonies defy one or both of the traditional colloquial definitions of individuality (having a distinct genotype and having an independent, physically separate body). Additionally, some organisms maintain the capability to reproduce through very long periods of metabolic dormancy, during which they may not be considered "alive" by certain definitions but nonetheless can resume normal metabolism afterward; it is unclear whether the dormant periods should be counted as part of the organism's lifespan.

  1. ^ Tacutu, R.; Thornton, D.; Johnson, E.; Budovsky, A.; Barardo, D.; Craig, T.; Diana, E.; Lehmann, G.; Toren, D.; Wang, J.; Fraifeld, V.E.; de Magalhães, J.P. "AnAge Database of Animal Ageing and Longevity". (2018) Human Ageing Genomic Resources: new and updated databases. Nucleic Acids Research 46(D1):D1083-D1090. Retrieved 28 September 2024.