There's no single answer, as "hardest life" is subjective, but candidates include the tardigrade (ultimate survivor, enduring space vacuum, radiation) or animals facing extreme human impact like factory-farmed poultry, while some natural struggles involve penguins trekking vast distances or cheetahs losing kills to stronger predators, and deep-sea dwellers like tubeworms facing immense pressure but living long lives.
If you're looking to the animal kingdom for tough customers, you need look no further than tardigrades. These eight-legged animals can survive extremes of heat, cold – even the vacuum of space.
The hands down hardest creature is a tardigrade, also known as a waterbear. Less than 1.5mm long, they can dehydrate their bodies to just 1 per cent of their normal water content.
I have named the mayfly Dolania americana the shortest lived among the Ephemeroptera with females typically living for less than five minutes (Sweeny & Vannote 1982).
Tardigrades may be the toughest animals on Earth. They have evolved to live almost anywhere and survive almost anything. Some tardigrades can shrug off conditions that would obliterate most living beings, including extremes far beyond anything found on Earth.
1. Mosquito (780,000 deaths per year) The tiny mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world as well as the most dangerous insect, claiming 780,000 lives annually.
The animal that can repel – most - attacks
Nothing beats a crocodile, not even a bullet. Their skin looks like medieval armour with interconnected bony, keratin-covered scales of various sizes, called scutes, and with further bony structures called osteoderms beneath them.
The tubeworm Escarpia laminata that lives in deep sea cold seeps regularly reaches the age of between 100 and 200 years, with some individuals determined to be more than 300 years old. Some may live for over 1,000 years.
Elephants hold the record for the longest pregnancy in the animal kingdom, with a gestation period of 18 to 22 months! Newborn elephant calves weigh a massive 200 to 250 pounds, making them the largest and heaviest land babies on Earth.
The Amur leopard is one of the rarest big cats in the world, with only around 100 individuals left in the wild.
The African bush elephant holds the title of the strongest animal on earth. Its trunk alone is able to lift more than 400 lbs. As the world's strongest animal on land, elephants—who take decades to finish growing—symbolize the sheer force that nature wields.
From lions and elephants to ants and banded mongooses, these aggressive animals are responsible for some of the greatest fights to the death in the animal kingdom.
8 safest mammals on the planet
The World's Ranking of the 10 Most Anxious Animals
Studies show that some corals can live for up to 5,000 years, making them the longest living animals on Earth. Some corals can live for up to 5,000 years, making them the longest living animals on Earth.
Mammals With Shortest Gestation Periods (less than a month)
Lizard and Snake Gestation Periods: 12 Months.
Do you know that the brown antechinus rat has the longest duration of mating, mating 14 hours non-stop! He mates once in his life time- Reason why he mates for 14 hours. It his chance to pass his genes on to the next generation, and he will die trying.
Jellyfish and comb jellies
This cycle can repeat indefinitely, potentially rendering it biologically immortal. These organisms originated in the Caribbean Sea, but have now spread around the world.
1. Mayflies. Mayflies (order Ephemeroptera) are aquatic insects known for having the shortest lifespans of any creature in the animal kingdom—they typically live for only one day.
African elephants are estimated to have a maximum lifespan of about 74 years, while their Asian elephant cousins can live up to about age 80. The world's oldest recorded elephant is thought to be an Asian elephant who lived to age 89 in captivity.
A "silent killer" animal can refer to predators with stealthy hunting methods, like the owl, leopard, or python, but also to venomous or disease-carrying creatures such as the venomous, yet cute, slow loris, the camouflaged stonefish, the fast-acting common krait snake, or even the microscopic mosquito, which transmits deadly diseases like malaria and West Nile virus, making it the world's deadliest "silent killer" overall.
The hydrozoan Turritopsis dohrnii, an animal about 4.5 millimetres wide and tall (likely making it smaller than the nail on your little finger), can actually reverse its life cycle. It has been dubbed the immortal jellyfish.