What is the oldest living creature on earth?

Question

animal, human, insect, whatever....what's the oldest?

Answer 1

Rumsfeld has to be pretty close.

Answer 2

Well, as far as I know, the giant tortoise that you mentioned lives the longest. About 150-180 years in captivity. If I remember correctly, Turkey Buzzards can also live to be quite old, perhaps somewhere around 110 years of age. When I first read your question, but not the details, I was thinking you were going to ask about living fossils. These are animals/fish/etc. that have changed very little over incredible time spans. One such example is the Coelacanth. A fish that was thought to have become extinct in the Cretaceous period (I.e. about 100 million years ago, when Dinosaurs were still around). Man were they surprised when one was fished up off the coast of Africa in 1938. They've found several since then.

Answer 3

according to guiness world records.

HER skin is wrinkled and she's carrying a few extra pounds, but there's still a twinkle in the old girl's eyes.

In fact she's in uncommonly good shape for someone who was born before Victoria came to the throne.

Harriet, a giant Galapagos Land tortoise and the world's oldest living creature, celebrates her 175th birthday on November 15.

Experts at her home in Australia Zoo, Brisbane, Queensland, reckon she will still be going strong in another 20 years.

The story really begins in 1835, when Harriet was just five and about the size of a dinner plate. She was discovered by Charles Darwin when he landed at the Galapagos archipelago.

And DNA analysis shows she is almost certainly from Santa Cruz island in the Galapagos while the Beagle's tortoises were taken from Espanola, Santa Maria and San Salvador respectively.

Answer 4

That depends on what you define as "oldest living creature"... I have listed below some of the oldest known creatures ever recorded by humans there may be older creatures out there we havent discovered yet, in any case there are several answers to your question and they are listed below. You can decide which is the right answer based on the meaning of your question..

Excerpts from Wikipedia...
Prometheus (aka WPN-114) is the nickname given to the oldest non-clonal organism ever known, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) tree about 5000 years old growing at treeline on a mountain in eastern Nevada, USA. The tree was cut down on August 6, 1964 by a graduate student and U.S. Forest Service personnel for research purposes.

Methuselah (estimated birth 2832 BCE) is a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, which, at 4,838 years old, is the oldest living organism currently known and documented. It is named after Methuselah, a biblical figure reputed to have lived 969 years. Its exact location is currently undisclosed to the public as a protection against vandalism.

An older specimen, nicknamed Prometheus, was at least 5000 years old, however it was cut down in 1964.


Whether Prometheus should be considered the oldest organism ever known depends on the definition of "oldest" and "organism" one uses. For example, certain sprouting or clonal organisms, such as creosote bush or aspen, could have older individuals if the entire clonal organism is considered. Under this criteria, the oldest living organism is a quaking aspen grove in Utah known as Pando, at 80,000 years old. In a clonal organism, however, the individual clonal stems are nowhere near as old, and no part of the organism at any given point in time is particularly old. Prometheus was thus the oldest non-clonal organism yet discovered, with its innermost wood over 5000 years of age. It is possible, however, that an older specimen occurs that has not yet been aged. Bristlecones are notoriously hard to age because of their extremely contorted growth, and cutting of old trees is no longer allowed.


The longest-lived animals have been variously described as

tortoises (188 years) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortoise#Lifespan
whales (about 210 years) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowhead_whale#Reproduction_and_lifespan

Answer 5

Trees are the most oldest [ not a creature ] living thing on the earth they live maybe for hundreds of Millennium,and they say the most oldest CREATURES are Tortoise nearly getting two century.

Answer 6

The Great Barrier Reef off the shores of Australia.

This is the OLDEST, still living creature on Earth.

Answer 7

the sturgeon (as a species) is the oldest animal that has remained relatively unchanged through history. tortoise on the Galapagos islands (as an individual animal) live longer than any other animal. they can live for a 100 years or more.

Answer 8

so far - scientists believe sea turtles live the longest, but essentially it's unknown until data from various animals they've probably tagged comes in. I'm sure there are some lizzards & / or whales or other species that live very long lives.

Answer 9

Plants such has conifers live an exceptionally long time, one once recorded to have lived for 100,000 years. The longest living animal was a mollusk that lived to be about 370 years old.

Answer 10

Well if you are talking living including plants then its those huge trees in the state of Washington.. if you are talking animals.. there is a tortose that lives past 130 or so..

Answer 11

Cockroaches