There are creatures almost as old as planet Earth itself, animals that have survived the most extreme circumstances such as natural disasters, extinctions, climate change and all kinds of devastations, their own evolution has helped them to stand firm on our planet.
Over the years and in order to adapt to their environment, these ancestral animals have developed amazing skills and strange physical characteristics.
- In this animal expert article we have put together a list for you to meet the 5 oldest animals in the world.
- Species much older than people with the oldest Guinness World Record and even all humans living on the planet.
This strange mixture of shark and eel inhabits the Earth for more than 150 million years, has a powerful jaw with 300 teeth spread over 25 rows, this species of shark is the oldest in the world.
They live in the depths of the ocean, although recently some specimens have been discovered off the coast of Australia and Japan, have evolved very little in terms of attractiveness, are physically afraid, imagines that a very ugly shark joined another even uglier and had a puppy.The snake shark (or eel shark) is the typical creature of children’s nightmares and is also one of the oldest animals in the world.
Lampreys are even older than snake sharks.They are 360 million years old, they are very strange agnats (jawless fish) whose mouth has a hole full of dozens of teeth that they use to hold other fish and at the same time suck their blood, they look like eels but not genetically related or related to them.
Unlike other fish, they have no scales and therefore, more than fish, they are almost parasites, they look thin, gelatinous and slippery.They are very primitive animals and some scientists claim that lampreys date practically from the Paleozoic era.
The 250 million-year-old sturgeons are among the oldest creatures in the world.Sturgeons are not a particular animal, but a family of 20 species, all more or less, with similar characteristics.The most popular is the European Atlantic sturgeon that lives in the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Although very, very ancient, several species of sturgeon that exist today are endangered, their eggs are highly valued and used in the excessive production of caviar, a sturgeon can reach 4 meters long and live 100 years.
This type of ant was recently discovered in the wet soils of the Amazon rainforest, however, it is said that the origin of its species is more than 130 million years old, in the list of the oldest animals in the world, the ant of Mars is the representative of mortality, since almost all the others are sea creatures.
They are known as “Martians” because it is a kind of ant with such distinct characteristics within its own family that it seems to come from another planet.She is considered the most primitive of her ‘sisters’. They are scientifically classified as “Heureka Martials” are small, predatory and blind.
In 2008, Canadian scientists discovered a new horseshoe crab fossil of 40 also known as L-41.They said this species of crab started life on Earth almost 500 million years ago.They are called “living fossils” because they have barely changed over time.Imagine how difficult it must be to stay the same after so many environmental transitions.Horseshoe crabs have earned their name because they are true warriors.
A curious fact is that this animal, although it has spent most of its life buried in the sand, is a species more related to arachnids than to crabs, this ancestral animal is in grave danger by the exploitation of its blood (which is blue), which has healing properties and is used for pharmaceutical purposes.
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