Some animals live far longer than most people realize, with lifespans that can stretch across generations, centuries, and in a few cases even millennia. From record-breaking pets to ancient ocean dwellers, these remarkable stories highlight some of the longest-lived creatures ever documented.
Oldest Spider’s Fatal Wasp Sting
1. Number 16, the world’s oldest known spider, died at age 43 after being stung by a wasp.
2. Yoda, the world’s oldest mouse, was just over four years old, the equivalent of about 136 in human years, and lived in quiet seclusion with his cage mate, Princess Leia, in a pathogen-free rest home for geriatric mice.
3. Creme Puff, the world’s oldest cat, died at the age of 38. She was born in 1967 and died in 2005.
4. Patrick the wombat was the world’s oldest wombat at 32 years and died a virgin. He had a Tinder profile and rode around in a wheelbarrow.
5. Muja, the world’s oldest known alligator, lives in the Belgrade Zoo and survived World War II, during which the zoo was almost completely destroyed, and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.
6. The tuatara, a reptile resembling a lizard native to New Zealand, can live well over 100 years. Henry, a tuatara at the Southland Museum in New Zealand, mated for the first time in 2009 at the estimated age of 111 with an 80-year-old female and fathered 11 baby tuatara.
7. Debby, the polar bear at the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg, Canada, was the oldest polar bear and the third-oldest bear species on record when she died in 2008 at the age of 42 years.
8. The longest living animal known is a deep-sea glass sponge of the Hexactinellid group, Monorhaphis chuni, which is estimated to be around 11,000 years old.
9. Some whale researchers estimate an orca named Granny to be 104 years old. She was captured with the rest of her pod in 1967 but was too old at that time for a marine mammal park, so was released. In 1967, Granny was estimated to have been born in 1911.
10. Nonja, a Sumatran orangutan, died at the age of 55 in December 2007. She was claimed to be the oldest-living orangutan of her species.
Birthday Celebrations for Snooty
11. Snooty, the world’s oldest captive manatee, lived at the South Florida Aquarium for nearly his entire life. On his birthday a cake of fruit and vegetables was made for him while visitors sang him Happy Birthday. He died in 2017 at the age of 69.
12. The oldest bat ever recorded was a Brandt’s bat found in a cave in Siberia that had been banded in 1964, making the bat at least 41 years old.
13. Ming the clam, at 507 years old, was one of the world’s oldest animals excluding primitive metazoans. Unfortunately, Ming died when the scientists opened it up to count the growth rings.
14. The oldest bear on record was a European brown bear named Andreas living in the Arcturos Bear Sanctuary in northern Greece. He was at least 50 years old at the time of his death.
15. An Asian elephant named Lin Wang was the oldest elephant in the Taipei Zoo. He was born on January 18, 1917, and died on February 26, 2003, at 86 years, surpassing the previous record of 84. Normally, elephants live up to 50 years, while their maximum lifespan is generally estimated at 70.
16. Old Billy is the oldest horse on record. Bill was allegedly born in the year 1760 in London, England, and Bill died in 1822 at the age of 62 years.
17. Elly, a wild-born black rhino, was the oldest in North America at an estimated 45 years of age and lived at the San Francisco Zoo in California from April 1974 until passing in May 2017.
18. Jonathan the tortoise is 187 years of age and is the oldest known living terrestrial animal in the world. Jonathan resides on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. He is now blind from cataracts, has lost his sense of smell, but has retained excellent hearing. When he was born, George Washington had only been dead 33 years and Abraham Lincoln was 22 years old.
19. Adwaita, the turtle, was born before Mozart and before the French Revolution, and his death was announced by CNN. His estimated age was just over 250 years. He died in 2006.
20. Greater, who lived to be at least 83, was the world’s oldest greater flamingo. In 2008, the almost blind bird was attacked and beaten by four teenagers. It was euthanized six years later because of arthritis.
Shell From Another Century
21. Tu’i Malila, a radiated tortoise born in 1777, died in May 1965 at 188 years old, making it the oldest verified vertebrate at that time.
22. Wisdom, a female Laysan albatross born in 1951, laid an egg at Midway Atoll in December 2016 at age 66, and as of 2018 she is the oldest known wild bird in the world.
23. Maggie, an Australian kelpie, is believed to be the world’s oldest dog; she lived on a dairy farm in Victoria, Australia and reached nearly 30 years of age.
24. Timothy, a spur-thighed tortoise born in Turkey, died in the UK on 3 April 2004 at 165 years old; she had served as the mascot to the HMS Queen during the Crimean War.
25. Cookie, a Major Mitchell’s cockatoo born in Australia on June 30, 1933 and resident at Brookfield Zoo in Illinois, was the oldest member of his species in captivity and died in August 2016 at a verified age of 83.
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