Top 10 oldest living creatures on the planet killed by humans

Incredible facts

Throughout its history, humankind has been searching for potential opportunities to live forever. At the same time, we consider it perfectly normal that living things of other species have a much shorter life span.

Many of us have pets whose lifespan is much shorter than ours. People raise a lot of animals on farms whose lifespan is very short because they are, let's face it, our food.

Trees, herbs and flowers, which are raw materials for humanity, are also, in fact, alive. And their lifespan is sometimes much shorter than that of many pets, not to mention humans.

However, there are life forms on the planet that have lived for many tens, hundreds and even thousands of years. And it is all the more difficult to see how people's irresponsibility destroys them. We bring to your attention the ten oldest living creatures destroyed by man…

The oldest animals killed by humans

Keith, who was at least 130 years old

In May 2007, a bowhale was killed by residents of the Alaskan coast. Often, when carcasses are cut, people find the remains of old harpoons or other weapons that used to hunt animals.

It is usually quite difficult to determine the age of such finds. However, this time, a remnant of a harpoon was found in the humerus of the whale, whose age was determined. According to scientists, this harpoon was used around 1890.

It turns out that a whale killed in 2007 managed to survive 117 years ago after being hit by a harpoon. Since people in the 19th century were more likely to harpoon only large adult whales, this whale was at least a teenager 117 years ago.

This gives scientists reason to believe that the animal killed in 2007 was at least 130 years old. It's hard to believe, but this is by no means the oldest specimen. It is known that bowhead whales can live in the wild for more than two hundred years.

Bicentennial sea bass

On June 21, 2013, Henry Liebman, a resident of Seattle, Washington, was fishing in deep waters off the coast of Alaska. Henry's fishing goal was his favorite prey, northern sea bass.

Usually found at depths of 25 to 1200 meters, sea bass thrives in ocean waters, eating mollusks and crustaceans that it encounters.

Liebman, an experienced fisherman, put the bait on the hook and managed to lower it to a depth of about 270 meters when he suddenly felt a bite. Henry struggled to fish to the surface, where he was amazed at the size of the bass, which weighed more than 18 kilograms.

This bass was not only the biggest one caught in Alaskan waters. After studying the ring-shaped growths along the fish's ear ossicle, scientists came to the conclusion that the perch that Liebman caught was at least two hundred years old.

400 year old shark

Sharks are notorious for the potential threat they pose to humans. One of the places where sharks most often attack humans is Australia. On average, there are about twelve attacks per year.

Now compare that to the hundreds of million sharks that are killed every year around the world. Most often, sharks are fished because of their fins. Be that as it may, the decline in the number of sharks cannot but contribute to a decrease in the number of shark attacks on humans.

Research shows that in Australia, the number of shark attacks on humans is decreasing every year, including due to their brutal extermination. At the same time, it cannot be said that this species has been thoroughly studied by mankind.

One of the least studied shark species, whose habits and lifestyles we don't know much about, is the Greenland polar shark (also called frilled shark). This species, which lives in icy waters off the coast of Greenland, is the slowest among sharks.

Until recently, scientists had difficulty determining the age of sharks, due to the lack of bone skeleton in these creatures. However, this is now possible, thanks to a special method that allows you to determine the age of a shark by the lens of its eye.

Thanks to this method, researchers were able to determine the age of the Greenland polar shark, which fell into fishermen's nets several years ago — 400 years ago. They were surprised to find that it was the oldest shark ever caught off the coast of Greenland.

The researchers then came to the conclusion that larger and even older individuals live in those waters. And they were right — in 2017, a 512-year-old Greenland shark was caught!

This specimen, unlike its younger 400-year-old shark, was luckier — it was released back into the wild after the fish's age was recorded. It is believed that even older sharks lived in those waters before World War II.

After all, at that time, the target of the fishery was the largest individuals who were hunted for fish oil from their liver, which was used as industrial oil. It can be said that the invention of synthetic oils saved this species, since it has almost ceased to be an object of fishing.

405-year-old mollusk

You probably don't care about the age of the clam you ordered at the restaurant. And you hardly know that mollusks from the large family of venerids (Mercenaria mercenaria) live in the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

These creatures are known for their amazing longevity. One of the methods for determining the age of these bivalves is to count the annual layers of their shells.

In addition, the study of these rings provides scientists studying climate change on the planet with information about how the temperature level of ocean waters has changed in different historical periods .

In 2007, a large mollusk of this species, which, according to researchers, was extracted to the surface from a depth of eighty meters. Thus, this mollusk is one of the oldest animals killed by man.

The oldest tree killed by man

The scientist's laziness destroyed a tree that was 4900 years old

As you know, adjusting the number of tree rings to determine the age of trees is even more common than doing this to determine the age of mollusks. Scientists studying climate change on the planet are also actively studying these rings.

But in order to do this, it is necessary to cut down (in fact, kill a tree) so that this method of study becomes possible. But there is another, more humane way. To do this, cut thin bars from the core of the tree, which also contain annual rings.

This method keeps trees alive. This is the method that a certain Donald Curry, a geographer who was given the go-ahead to collect tree samples in Great Basin National Park, Nevada, in 1964, should have used.

In particular, the scientist was interested in samples of spinous intermountain pine, which grows at a high altitude, on one of the mountains of the National Park. This type of pine tree, also called the Prometheus tree, is known for its ability to live long.

Currie planned to study the annual rings of one of these trees in order to collect data on the movement of glaciers in that region. However, the geographer, for only one reason known to him (apparently laziness), simply cut down one of the pines.

When the trunk sample was delivered to the laboratory, it turned out that the scientist killed the oldest tree known to mankind at that time — the pine tree was about 4900 years old.

This record, which was recorded thanks to this barbaric method, lasted until 2012. Then scientists were able to find a pine tree of the same species, which was 5065 years old. Fortunately, this tree was not cut down.

A hundred-year-old elephant

In the mid-fifties of the last century, a certain J. J. Fenikovi, a big game hunter who came from Hungary to hunt and travel to the Portuguese colony in Angola, found traces of a very large elephant near a watering hole.

The size of the tracks impressed the hunter — each trail was about ninety centimeters. Fenikovi did not have the opportunity to track down the animal at that time, so he promised to return to the same place next year to hunt for an elephant.

The animal was destroyed by the elephant's habit of returning to the same watering place. On November 13, 1955, the hunter was already waiting for his victim. Hungary needed 16 rounds of .416 Rigby rounds (for large-caliber rifles) to lay down the giant.

As it turned out later, the elephant weighed 8 tons, was almost four meters high, and was about a hundred years old. Fenikovi, realizing the uniqueness of this individual, hired a dozen local residents to refresh the animal by removing its two-ton skin.

The hunter sent his trophy to the United States of America, where it was made into a scarecrow, and then exhibited it at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Now a stuffed elephant is the first thing that greets visitors to the museum in its lobby.

For decades, this elephant was considered the biggest elephant ever shot, until November 1974. Then a car seller from Nebraska killed an animal that was 20 centimeters taller.

Read also: The 10 most famous long-lived animals

Moreover, the hunter left the carcass of the killed elephant where he shot it. As a trophy, the American took with him only his huge tusks, of known value, and his equally huge ears.

A 148-kilogram fossil fish that was 94 years old

The alligator pike (Mississippi shell) is a species of living fossil fish, the study of whose remains suggests that they lived 100 million years ago, during the age of dinosaurs.

Both fresh water from rivers and salt waters of the ocean are suitable for the shell. It can be found in Mississippi waters, as well as in the coastal waters of the United States of America, where this river flows into the ocean.

These unique creatures have also adapted to breathe atmospheric air outside the water. Thanks to all of the above, alligator pike once lived much north of the state, as well as in other coastal waters of the continent.

In 2011, on February 14, a man named Kenny Williams caught a gigantic Mississippi shell, breaking the previous record for this species caught alive. This happened near a fishing house in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Williams' prey was so large that he only managed to bring fish aboard his boat using nets. This alligator pike was two meters and 60 centimeters long and weighed 148 kilograms. But the most amazing thing was her age — about 94 years old.

The oldest representatives of flora and fauna killed by man

Centennial lobster

Lobster hunters catch about 200 million of these crustaceans in waters off the North Atlantic coast every year. Among these hundreds of millions, there are quite unusual individuals. For example, lobsters are light blue in color.

Another notable feature of lobsters is their ability to survive. An interesting fact is that the results of one study were recently published, according to which lobsters have the potential to live forever!

Theoretically speaking, the DNA of these creatures can prevent their body from aging. And it is quite possible that this would be the case if it were not for the physiological feature of lobsters, which causes them to molt and shed their hard carapace.

As lobsters grow older, the process of molting them becomes more and more difficult. It is known, for example, that up to 15 percent of these creatures die at the same time. The probability of death from infections becomes higher the larger the size of the lobster shell.

The largest known lobster was caught in 1977 off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. He weighed more than 20 kilograms and is believed to be about a hundred years old. He almost ended his life trivially: he was sold to a restaurant, but the vegans bought him out and let him go.

Giant turtles are the massacre of creatures that live hundreds of years

Giant turtles are undeniable centenarians. These unique animals have been destroyed by humans for centuries, so it is difficult to say exactly how many of the oldest individuals killed by humans were.

Giant turtles have thrived on many tropical islands around the world. These leisurely animals, characterized by a slow metabolism, grow to more than one meter in length and weigh a couple hundred kilograms.

Aldabra is the name of the only island that limits the natural habitat of these turtles today. Centuries ago, during the East India Company, Robert Clive, a British general, was given a few turtles.

It is known that Clive committed suicide in 1774, accused of abuse of office. A few years later, one of the turtles, a male named Advaita, found himself in Alipur, Calcutta, India (now the country's oldest zoo).

Advaita outlived his master by 232 years and passed away on March 22, 2006! It is believed that he was no longer a young tortoise when he came to Clive, which means that Advaita must have been at least 250 years old at the time of his death.

If humanity did not interfere in the lives of these animals, Advaita's relatives, who lived in many parts of the world, would also live to such an old age. However, most species of giant turtles, falling into the zone of interest of the first sailors who found themselves on tropical islands, were on the verge of extinction.

And what killed these animals was their ability to survive for a long time without food and water supplies. Thus, giant turtles themselves became food for many people during long sea voyages.

Explorers and traders easily landed on an island, caught a dozen of these slow creatures, each weighing at least several tens of kilograms.

They were thrown aboard ships alive, sometimes stacked on top of each other. Animals needed a minimal supply of food to stay alive. On the other hand, they themselves served as a source of fresh meat for sea travelers. Meat that could be several hundred years old.

Florida State Tree, which was 3,500 years old, was destroyed by a drug addict

This oldest tree was born a long time ago. Long before the founding of Jamestown in 1607, the first British settlement in what is now the United States; before the founding of the Roman Empire; and a thousand years before the exploits of Alexander the Great.

A small marsh cypress grew in what is now Florida 2500 years BC! And for the last 3,500 years of his life, all he did was gain weight and height, becoming a huge tree.

As a result, the cypress has reached more than 38 meters in height with a trunk girth of more than five meters in diameter. In the last years of its life, this oldest Florida tree, which was named “Senator”, grew in Longwood, in Big Tree National Park, in the state.

However, on January 16, 2012, a local drug addict named Sarah Barnes came to the park. She planned to smoke a pipe using methamphetamine, which she often did in this park. It was dark at night, so Sarah collected some wood and lit a fire.

Post navigation