Animals with The Shortest Lifespan
Different species live with different life spans, so to speak. Humans can reach the age of 100 and even more, tortoises can live up to 150 years, and the Greenland shark can stunningly live up to 500 years old. This fact might get you curious about animals with the shortest lifespan. Well, here is the list to satisfy your curiosity.
Bernese Mountain Dog
Most dogs can live up to 12 years or a little bit more, and the fact that our best friends can only live that long is heartbreaking. But unfortunately, there is a breed of dog with even a shorter lifespan than most breeds, they’re called the Bernese mountain dog.
It is widely known that larger dogs usually have shorter lifespan than most dogs but the Bernese mountain dog can only live up to 5.7 years while other large dogs can live to the age of 8. This is caused by the breed’s high risk of cancer called neoplasia.
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
From the dog world, we’re heading to the bird world with a ruby throated hummingbird that has the shortest lifespan of any bird. Most members of this species can live up to 3 or 4 years with the oldest record being 6 years and 11 months.
A lot of the members of this species can’t live through the first year of their lives, allowing the most capable and hardiest hummingbirds to pass their genes to their offspring. Due to the high mobility of hummingbirds, it is difficult to find out their exact life cycles.
Paedophryne Amanuensis
Paedophryne Amanuensis is the official name of the smallest vertebrate in the world, a species of frog that live in Papua New Guinea which is also one of animals with the shortest lifespan. With their small size which is less than a third of an inch, learning more about them is difficult, but we do know that they can only live for about one year.
Sign Eviota
Among the vast species of fish, scientists were able to find the one kind that has the shortest lifespan of any fish and they’re called the sign eviota.
The sign eviota which live in Australia's Great Barrier Reef can live for only 2 weeks and even half of that short lifespan is in the larval form. Scientists believed that the short lifespan is their way to deal with the high levels of natural predators.
Mayfly
While a two-week lifespan seems incredibly short, that's not the shortest record in the animal kingdom. The record holder is the mayfly which can only live for 24 hours. With this incredibly short time, the mayfly's main purpose in life is to mate and die.
With only 24 hours to live and the sole priority is to mate, they don’t even have time to develop their mouths since there’s no time to eat. But this tactic worked, mayfly is not only animals with the shortest lifespan, but also the oldest species of insect still alive.
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