The Top 10 Oldest Living Things on Earth By analise.dubner [232 more lists]
You could probably nitpick some of these life forms within a million years here, a million years there... but the fact remains that these animals have been around a LONG @#$% time. They've achieved apparent perfection in their environment. Millennia have passed and they keep on keeping on. Sure, a tail might shorten, an extra tentacle might grow, or a more streamlined coat of armor.... but, like that guy you know with the haircut he's had since high school, these animals have asked themselves the question: why change it if it's working? These are the oldest living things on the planet, and they just might still be here long after we are nothing more than fossils found buried in a pile of styrofoam take-out boxes.
- 1
Cyanobacteria
2.8 billion years
Cyanobacteria are considered to be among the first life forms on Earth. The first ones lived on sulfates and methane that was abundant in Earth's early atmosphere. Today's cyanobacteria are practically identical to the originals. They have survived every major extinction event including the Permian extinction that killed 90 percent of the species at that time. -
- 2
Nautilus
- 3
Jellyfish
505 Million Years
Jellyfish belong to the group of animals called Cnidaria or Coelenterata. This group includes corals, hydras, jellyfish, Portuguese men-of-war, sea anemones, sea pens, sea whips, and sea fans. They are hard to fossilize, being made of mostly water, but a few years ago some new fossils were found that make them even older than previously thought. -
- 4
Sponge
580 Million Years
Sponges are from an ancient animal group whose lineage can be traced back to the beginnings of animal life. Fossils of glass sponges have been found from around 540 million years ago in rocks in Australia, China and Mongolia. Although about 90% of modern sponges are demosponges, fossilized remains of this type are less common than those of other types because their skeletons are composed of relatively soft spongin that does not fossilize well. - 5
Horseshoe Crab
445 Million Years
The ole Horsehoe has remained pretty much unchanged since the Ordovician period. So, it's existed on Earth for about 74% of the time that animals in general have. The earliest horseshoe crab species were crawling around the Earth's shallow coastal seas for at least 100 million years before the dinosaurs even arrived.
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