HideShark list
Slow, cold, and large is the recipe for a long life. The animals near the top of this list share deep, cold water or a low-energy lifestyle, and several were only discovered to be so old when new dating methods were applied to them. A few animals escape ageing altogether — they lead the list, with an asterisk.
No maximum age — reverts to a juvenile instead of dying
A pinhead-sized jellyfish that, when stressed or injured, collapses and regrows as a young polyp, in principle without limit. It still gets eaten, crushed, and infected — so wild individuals die young — but it has no built-in ageing. Several hydras and corals share this "biological immortality."
Full immortal jellyfish * guide →250–500 years — the longest-lived vertebrate
A slow, deep-water Arctic shark that grows about 1 cm a year. Radiocarbon dating of the lens of the eye put one female at an estimated 272–512 years old, meaning she may have been born before 1627.
Full greenland shark guide →200+ years — the longest-lived mammal
An Arctic baleen whale. Stone harpoon points from the 1800s have been found lodged in living bowheads, and amino-acid dating of eye tissue supports lifespans well over two centuries.
150–190 years
Aldabra and Galápagos giant tortoises routinely pass 150. "Jonathan," a Seychelles giant tortoise living on St Helena, is thought to have hatched around 1832, making him the oldest known living land animal.
Full giant tortoise guide →150+ years
A deep-sea fish that does not begin breeding until it is 20–40 years old and can live past 150 — which is why the fisheries that targeted it collapsed so fast.
100+ years
New Zealand’s living fossil runs on a cold, slow metabolism, keeps growing until about 35, and breeds into old age — one captive male fathered young at an estimated 111.
Full tuatara guide →~70 years average, likely over 100
A blind cave salamander that barely moves, can fast for a decade, and lives far longer than its finger-sized body should allow.
Full olm guide →Around 100 years
Growth-ring counts revised the deep-sea "living fossil" from an estimated 20 years to about a century, with females maturing near 60 and pregnant for five years.
Full coelacanth guide →Over 100 years
Cemented to one spot on a reef and growing slowly on algae-farmed sugars, the largest bivalve can outlive the people who first found it — shell growth bands record more than a century.
Full giant clam guide →Estimated 80–130 years
Growth-band and radiocarbon studies suggest the largest fish in the sea also lives for well over a century, maturing only at 25–30 years old.
Full whale shark guide →80–90 years, possibly over 100
Age is read from layers in the waxy ear plug the whale lays down through life. The largest animal ever is also one of the longest-lived.
Full blue whale guide →70+ years, maturing at 20–40
Sea turtles grow slowly and breed late, and a green turtle that survives its vulnerable early years can live for the better part of a century.
Full green sea turtle guide →60–70 years — set by its teeth
An elephant goes through six sets of molars in a lifetime. When the last set wears out, in its sixties, the animal can no longer chew enough food and its life ends.
Full african elephant guide →Over 50 years
A slow-breeding seabird that does not start reproducing until about age ten. Ringed birds have been tracked at sea for more than half a century.
Full wandering albatross guide →Up to 45–50 years
This egg-laying mammal has a very low metabolic rate and body temperature and can shut its body down for weeks at a time, and it lives far longer than a mammal its size normally would.
Full echidna guide →Estimated 60–90 years
The heavy, flightless New Zealand parrot lives at an extraordinarily slow pace, breeding only in years when the rimu tree fruits — one captive male fathered chicks at an estimated age near 100.
Full kakapo guide →Over 100 years
The largest and probably longest-lived sturgeon, an ancient lineage of cartilage-skeletoned fish. The giant individuals that once reached a tonne took a century or more to grow — which is part of why fishing wiped them out.
Full beluga sturgeon guide →Well over 100 years; a close relative is estimated past 190
Aldabra giant tortoises routinely live beyond a century, and Jonathan, a related Seychelles giant tortoise on St Helena hatched around the 1830s, is generally regarded as the oldest known living land animal. Verifying such ages is hard because the tortoises outlast the records kept on them.
Full aldabra giant tortoise guide →A confirmed 69 years — among the longest-lived lizards
This turquoise Caribbean iguana is slow-growing and slow to mature, and one captive individual is documented to have reached 69 years, among the greatest confirmed ages for any lizard. That longevity is part of why a captive-breeding rescue could rebuild the species from about two dozen wild animals.
Full grand cayman blue iguana guide →Up to 112 years — the oldest known freshwater bony fish
For a century this drab North American sucker was assumed to live about 25 years. In 2019 researchers dated the ear stones of fish from Minnesota lakes and found most were over 80, several past 100, and the oldest about 112, older than any other bony fish on record. Some populations are almost entirely elderly, having barely bred in decades, yet the species is still shot in unlimited numbers as a rough fish.
Full bigmouth buffalo guide →It depends whether you count animals that escape ageing. The immortal jellyfish and some hydras and corals can effectively reset their age and have no known maximum lifespan, though they still die from predation and injury. Among animals that age normally, the Greenland shark is the longest-lived vertebrate, with an estimated maximum of around 400–500 years, and the ocean quahog clam has been dated to 507. The bowhead whale is the longest-lived mammal at over 200.
A giant tortoise. Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise on the island of St Helena, is believed to have hatched around 1832, which would make him roughly 190 years old and the oldest known living land animal.
Cold slows metabolism, and a slow metabolism means less cellular damage from the byproducts of energy use, slower growth, and later maturity. Animals in the cold deep sea also face fewer predators and a stable environment, so evolution favours a long, slow life.