What Is the Longest-Living Animal?

“What is the longest-living animal on earth?”

Great question, Tod. Lots of animals can live for a long time. Some elephants have lived past 80, a flamingo lived to 83, and multiple tortoises have a lifespan surpassing 100 years. The oldest known living tortoise, a Seychelles giant tortoise, is 194 years old.1

Jonathan, the world’s oldest known reptile
Kevstan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

But land-dwelling organisms are not the kings of longevity. That honor belongs to sea life.

• One bowhead whale was estimated to be 211 years old when it died.2
• A species of tube worm had some individuals exceed 300 years old.3
• An Arctic clam is believed to exceed 500 years.4
• A Greenland shark was caught that was estimated to be, at minimum, 272 years old, but possibly as old as 512!5

Hexactinellid sponges are estimated to live thousands of years, based on their current growth rate.

The top honor goes to an Antarctic sponge called the hexactinellid sponge. God created everything 6,000 years ago, and the flood devastated the globe about 4,500 years ago. Most creatures died in the flood or soon after, and certainly none of them have been alive for more than 6,000 years. Some scientists have estimated the longevity of this sponge species to be 15,000 years.6 This is an estimate, based on current growth rates. If the growth rate was faster in the past (and it probably was, because Antarctica was likely warmer in the past), the sponges are much younger. That said, they are certainly very old, likely the longest-living animals on the planet.

Do you have any questions about animals and created kinds? Well, you can ask me, Inspector Barry Mins! Have your parents help you fill out this form, and you might get your question answered in my column.

Footnotes

1. Anna Lamche, “World’s oldest known tortoise still alive, as reports of death revealed as hoax,” BBC News, April 2, 2026, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c393xmpzjwko.
2. Ned Rozell, “Bowhead Whales May Be the World’s Oldest Mammals,” Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks: Alaska Science Forum, February 15, 2001, https://web.archive.org/web/20091209053409/http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF15/1529.html.
3. Alanna Durkin, Charles R. Fisher, and Erik E. Cordes, “Extreme Longevity in a Deep-Sea Vestimentiferan Tubeworm and Its Implications for the Evolution of Life History Strategies,” The Science of Nature 104, no. 63 (July 2017): 7–8, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-017-1479-z.
4. Paul G. Butler, Alan D. Wanamaker Jr., James D. Scourse, Christopher A. Richardson, David J. Reynolds, “Variability of Marine Climate on the North Icelandic Shelf in a 1357-Year Proxy archive Based on Growth Increments in the Bivalve Arctica islandica,” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 373 (March 1, 2013): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.01.016.
5. Suman Varandani, “512-Year-Old Shark, Believed to Be Oldest Living Vertebrate, Found in North Atlantic,” International Business Times, December 14, 2017, https://www.ibtimes.com/512-year-old-shark-believed-be-oldest-living-vertebrate-found-north-atlantic-2628368.
6. Human Ageing Genomic Resources, “An Age: The Animal Ageing and Longevity,” accessed May 11, 2026, https://genomics.senescence.info/species/entry.php?species=Scolymastra_joubini.