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Amazing chart shows the planet's longest-living animals. For humans, reaching the age of 100 is a rare milestone. For some animals, however, it's hardly uncommon. Not all plants and animals age the way we do, and some are built for much longer lifespans than ours. Of the 10 animals that live the longest, all of them live well past 100, according to a recent post in Discovery News. At the top of the list, the ocean quahog (aka the clam) lives to be 400 years old, while the runner-up bowhead whale lives to be 211.
The ocean quahog is large bivalve that can reach a height of up to 10 cm. It grows rather rapidly during the first years, but the growth slows down after it reaches sexual maturity at the age of about 20 years, at the size of 6 to 7 cm. The ocean quahog can live to a very old age; the oldest individual measured in Icelandic waters was estimated to be about 400 years old. This makes the ocean quahog the longest lived animal on earth. The ocean quahog lives buried in the sediment so only a small opening of the shell is visible.