Tardigrades have been around a long time. Fossils date their existence on Earth to more than 500 million years ago. This means
The planet has experienced five previous mass extinction events, the last one occurring 65.5 million years ago which wiped out the dinosaurs from existence. Experts now believe we're in the midst of a sixth mass extinction.
Herbivores survived the end-Permian mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs and other species of plants and animals by developing stronger jaws to eat tougher plants.
How did sharks survive five mass extinction events? There is no single reason sharks survived all five major extinction events - all had different causes and different groups of sharks pulled through each one. One general theme, however, seems to be the survival of deep-water species and the dietary generalist.
“It's a great mystery,” Elizabeth Sibert, a paleobiologist and oceanographer at Yale University, told Science News. “Sharks have been around for 400 million years. They've been through hell and back. And yet this event wiped out (up to) 90% of them.”
Birds: Birds are the only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction event 65 million years ago. Frogs & Salamanders: These seemingly delicate amphibians survived the extinction that wiped out larger animals. Lizards: These reptiles, distant relatives of dinosaurs, survived the extinction.
The longest-lived animal ever discovered is a quahog clam, estimated to be 507 years old. It had been living on the seabed off the north coast of Iceland until it was scooped up by researchers in 2006 as part of a climate change study.
Share: Far bigger than any dinosaur, the blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever lived. An adult blue whale can grow to a massive 30m long and weigh more than 180,000kg - that's about the same as 40 elephants, 30 Tyrannosaurus Rex or 2,670 average-sized men.
There are two basic types (genera) of shield shrimp, Triops and Lepidurus. Scientists credit Triops cancriformis as the oldest animal species. Other species may not be quite so old, but the natural histories of the species are similar.
We then compared this pattern with the most famous mass extinction of all: the end-Cretaceous event that took place 66 million years ago and led to the loss of most large-bodied vertebrate groups, including the nonbird dinosaurs.
The Permian mass extinction, which happened 250 million years ago, was the largest and most devastating event of the five. The Permian-Triassic extinction event is also known as the Great Dying. It eradicated more than 95% of all species, including most of the vertebrates which had begun to evolve by this time.
Permian–Triassic extinction event.
The fossil record indicates that Homo sapiens has been around for 315,000 years or so, but for most of that time, the species was rare—so rare, in fact, that it came close to extinction, perhaps more than once.
Endangered Species: Humans Might Have Faced Extinction 1 Million Years Ago. New genetic findings suggest that early humans living about one million years ago were extremely close to extinction.
Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species due to either natural causes such as population decline from sub-replacement fertility, an asteroid impact, large-scale volcanism, or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction).
Estimates of sponge longevity vary quite a bit, but are often in the thousands of years. One study in the journal Aging Research Reviews notes a deep-sea sponge from the species Monorhaphis chuni lived to be 11,000 years old. Yes, a sponge is an animal—and it has a remarkable life-span.
Recently, researchers reported that they believe the Spinosaurus may be the largest-ever carnivore in history, and that finding builds on the work of paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim, who in 2014 found the fossils that proved the Spinosaurus hunted its prey in rivers 97 million years ago.
Greenland Shark
Living in the waters of—you guessed it—Greenland, this shark lives for 300 to 500 years. It has the longest known lifespan of any vertebrate species.
The First Animals
Sponges were among the earliest animals. While chemical compounds from sponges are preserved in rocks as old as 700 million years, molecular evidence points to sponges developing even earlier.
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.
As the climate became warmer after the last ice age, the woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth and wild horse went extinct, but the reindeer, bison and musk ox survived. Reindeer managed to find safe habitat in high arctic regions where today they have few predators or competitors for limited resources.
No! After the dinosaurs died out, nearly 65 million years passed before people appeared on Earth. However, small mammals (including shrew-sized primates) were alive at the time of the dinosaurs.
Variables such as temperature, food sources, and oxygen levels are all factors that might impact dinosaur survival. Because dinosaurs lived in much warmer climates millions of years ago, many experts doubt they could even survive today.