15 animals that are older than your grandparents

While people are looking for the secrets of longevity, these animals, birds and fish have been quietly living for hundreds of years on our planet. Our list includes 14 old-timers and one immortal creature!

George, a giant lobster, weighs about 9.1 kg, which suggests that his age is about 140 years old. It was caught in 2008 off the coast of Newfoundland. For a while, George was the property of the City Crab and Seafood restaurant in New York, to which the lobster was sold for $ 100. However, in 2009 he was released back into the ocean, largely influenced by the activities of the animal rights group PETA.

Hatteria Henry, living at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery in New Zealand, celebrated his 115th birthday. If scientists have correctly determined the age of the reptile, then Henry is the same age as Al Capone. Interestingly, in 2009, Henry managed to produce offspring with another hatteria named Mildred, who was 111 years old at the time. Indeed, all ages are submissive to love!

Guidaki is a species of marine mollusks, considered the largest burrowing mollusks. In addition, guidaks are also long-lived: their average life expectancy is 146 years, and the age of the oldest individual found today is 168 years.

This is Jonathan, a 182-year-old giant turtle from St. Helena. "He's practically blind, he's lost his sense of smell, but he still has good hearing," says a local veterinarian. At 182, Jonathan may be the oldest living being on the planet. (Pictured is Jonathan in the 1900s.)

Jonathan now.

Until recently, an 83-year-old flamingo named Greater lived at the Adelaide Zoo. The bird arrived at the zoo in the 1930s, survived an attack by hooligans in 2008, but, to the great regret of Australians, was euthanized in January 2014 after her condition deteriorated sharply and treatment stopped helping.

Hoplostet is a species of deep—sea fish that reach sexual maturity after 20 years and can live up to 150 years. This means that the oldest known hoplostet was born around the same year that Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States.

It is known that red sea urchins live on average about 200 years. These invertebrates live in shallow waters off the west coast of America. The sea urchin, passing through all stages of development to an adult in just 1 month, reaches a size of 4 cm at the age of two years, and then annually adds 10 millimeters in growth. These animals attracted special attention of scientists after a label dated 1805 was found on one of the living individuals.

Cockatoo Cookie celebrated its 80th anniversary last year. He was caught in 1933 in Australia and arrived at the Brookfield Zoo (USA) for its opening in 1934. Cookie has significantly outlived its relatives: parrots of this species live from 40 to 60 years in captivity. Since 2009, the parrot has ceased to be shown to the public, except for isolated appearances in connection with holidays and the celebration of his birthday.

A mollusk named Min, caught on the Icelandic shelf, according to the first assumptions, lived 400 years. Upon repeated analysis, scientists determined his age at around 507 years.

Bowhead whales can live up to 200 years. The average life expectancy of this species is about 40 years. However, individuals can live up to 211 years, which is a record among vertebrates.

103-year-old Granny, the oldest known killer whale, is the matriarch of the killer whale community known as J-Pod. Her age was calculated in an unusual way. Since it was impossible to study it by standard methods, scientists used the method of counting reproductive cycles.

Killer whales give their first offspring at the age of 14 and stop giving birth at the age of 40. The offspring live with their parents all their lives, and it was this factor that made it possible to determine the age of the Granny killer whale.

Another long—lived among the representatives of the turtles is the 250-year-old Advaita, a giant turtle from the island of Aldabra, who died in 2006. The average weight of such a turtle is about 120 kilograms. Advaita was very popular with tourists and attracted many visitors to the Kolkata City Zoo.

In the same year 2006, another giant turtle died — 176-year-old Gariette from the zoo in Queensland (Australia).

It is believed that Gariett was personally found by Charles Darwin in 1835 on one of the Galapagos Islands.

Albatross Wizdom is perhaps the youngest of the representatives of this list. She is about 63 years old. Albatrosses form pairs for life, and Vizdom and his partner raised about 30 chicks, the last of which — the 35th according to ornithologists - appeared in the winter of this year.

Complete the list of Turritopsis dohrnii. Their other name is immortal jellyfish. These creatures live in The Mediterranean Sea and in the waters of Japan. Their amazing ability to live forever was discovered by chance by a student Christian Sommer in 1988. During the summer holidays, Christian studied a class of aquatic invertebrates, hydroids, whose life cycle includes a jellyfish with a characteristic feature — velum and polyp. Sommer kept his findings in Petri dishes and observed their reproduction cycles. After a few days, he noticed that Turritopsis dohrnii was behaving very unusually, defying reasonable explanation. These jellyfish didn't die. In other words, they grew in the opposite direction, getting younger and younger, until they reached an early stage of development, at which they began their life cycle anew. Later scientists from Genoa, who deepened Christian's research, in 1996 published the work Reversing the Life Cycle, in which they described the transformation of adult individuals back into polyps, which, in fact, opens the way for these creatures to potential immortality. By the way, Turritopsis dohrnii is often called the Benjamin Button jellyfish.