The longest living creatures on the planet

[Catherine]

This is an interesting list and some of them will surprize you. We all know about tortoises living a long time, but who knew about jellyfish.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0


I knew that some reptiles live a long time so the Tuatara don't surprize me. However, I never thought about clams having a long life. The Geoduck clams live over 100 years. So if you decide to eat one, you could be costing the clam 100 years of life.
I knew Koi lived a long time and I have heard of Hanako. They are intelligent fish and I can imagine what a 200 year old Koi would know. It would be amazing.
The real surprizes were the sea urchin and the Antarctic sponge. A sponge over 1000 years old! WOW!

We don't even have close to that much time.

[Tobi]

Yes it's incredible how long some species live. I had no idea Clams lived so long, or Koi.

I am so glad I'm not a Sponge! I don't think I would like to live for 1000 years. But I don't suppose Sponges mind.

[Catherine]

I don't know, a thousand years would give you time to do many things. Of course sponges don't do much. Maybe they live so slowly that a thousand years doesn't seem like much.

The opposite is dwarf hamsters. They can die of old age at 18 months so they live life very quickly and very intensely. They always dig through the food bowl to eat their favourite seeds first. Time is short. They don't have time to be sensible.