The longest-living animals are equipped with traits to hold off, and sometimes even stop or reverse, the aging process. While humans may have an "absolute limit" of 150 years, this is just a blink of an eye compared with the centuries and millennia that some animals live through.
The true age champions live in water, often at great depths where conditions are stable and consistent. Scientists can't record the birth and death of every member of a species, so they typically estimate maximum life spans based on what is known about a species' biology. From old to oldest, here are 13 of the longest-living animals in the world today.
