The eldest documented living individual animal in the world was a 507-year old ocean quahog clam dredged up from the waters of northern Iceland in 2006. The clam was named "Ming" for the Ming Dynasty, which was in existence when the mollusk was born in 1499.
Zoologists calculated the age based on the number of annual rings on the shell which, in the case of clams, is a very reliable indicator. Unfortunately and ironically, in Ming's case, the scientists shellfishly froze him* to death before they counted his rings and discovered his hoary age. It is quite possible that Ming could have lasted a good deal longer if he had been left unmolested. Of course, considering the quantity of quahogs which are harvested by fishermen each year who do not bother to count their rings, there may well have been even older individuals caught whose advanced years were never suspected.
Some colony animals like coral or sponges may live much longer than a half of a millennium, and there is a weird jellyfish which achieves a type of immortality by cycling between an adult and polyp phase over and over again. However, for single individual creatures which start out small, grow to adulthood, and then eventually die, Ming at the moment has the record for longevity of all the animals on the earth.
If you wish to read more about Ming as well as see an actual photo of him (the picture above is just your ordinary run-of-the mill generic quahog), please click on the ScienceNordic webpage.
*It is hard to tell the sex of clams, and sometimes they even change gender during the course of their lives. Thus, the use of the masculine pronoun for Ming is somewhat arbitrary.
No comments:
Post a Comment