Animal Lifespan - Shortest to Longest Quiz

The American sand-burrowing mayfly is a tiny insect with clear wings. It lives near clean, sandy rivers in the southeastern United States. The adult females live for only five minutes, and the males live for about thirty minutes. They spend their brief lives flying, mating, and laying eggs before they pass away.

These insects spend up to two years growing underwater as babies before their short adult life begins. It is crazy when you realize that the adult mayfly does not even have a mouth or a stomach because it does not live long enough to eat!

The mosquito is a small, flying insect with a thin body and long legs. You can find these insects all over the world, especially near warm, wet areas, and you have probably been bitten by one before. Most adult mosquitoes live for only two to three weeks.

They spend their days drinking plant juices and looking for water to lay their eggs. Only the female mosquitoes bite humans and animals because they need blood to grow their eggs.

The common octopus is a smart marine animal with eight arms and a bulb-shaped head. It lives in shallow, tropical waters all around the world. This creature lives a fast life and survives for only one to two years. It spends its days hiding in rocky dens and hunts for crabs at night.

After laying her eggs, the mother stops eating entirely and stays with her nest until her body shuts down and she passes away.

The Elephant is the largest land animal on Earth and is known for its long trunk and big ears. These heavy animals live in the grasslands and forests of Africa and Asia. They have an average lifespan of sixty to seventy years in the wild. Elephants spend up to sixteen hours every day eating grass, leaves, and fruit.

They can communicate with each other over long distances by making low noises that travel through the ground.

The human is a highly intelligent mammal with a large brain and the ability to walk on two legs. Humans live on every continent on earth, from hot deserts to freezing polar areas. The average global lifespan for a human is about seventy to eighty years. People spend their time building communities, using complex language, and creating new technologies. Humans are the only animals on the planet that cook their food and use writing to share knowledge with the next generation.

The Galapagos Giant Tortoise is a massive reptile with a hard, bony shell and thick legs. This heavy creature lives only on the tropical islands of the Galapagos Archipelago near South America. It has an average lifespan of over one hundred years, and some can live past one hundred and fifty years.

These reptiles spend their days eating grass, cactus pads, and leaves, and they can survive for a whole year without any food or water. Charles Darwin famously studied these specific animals to understand how different creatures change and adapt over time.

The Bowhead whale is a massive sea mammal with a thick layer of fat and a large, curved head. This giant creature lives exclusively in the freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean. It has an average lifespan of two hundred years, making it the longest-living mammal on the planet.

This whale has the biggest mouth of any animal on Earth, and it takes up nearly one-third of its entire body length. It uses its massive, heavy skull like a battering ram to smash through solid ocean ice so it can breathe.

The Ocean Quahog Clam is a round marine mollusk with a dark, thick shell. This small creature lives buried in the sandy floor of the North Atlantic Ocean. It routinely lives for over four hundred years, and the oldest known clam lived for five hundred and seven years.

It spends its time filtering tiny food particles from the cold ocean water. Scientists can find out the exact age of this clam by counting the growth rings on its shell just like a person counts the rings on a tree tree trunk.

The Antarctic Sponge is a simple, pale sea animal that looks like a dense bush or a vase. This creature lives on the deep, freezing floor of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. It can live for up to fifteen thousand years because the ice-cold water causes it to grow at a very slow pace.

This animal spends its time staying anchored to one spot and pumping water through its body to trap tiny food particles. It does not have a brain, eyes, or a heart, but it is one of the oldest living animals on Earth.

The Immortal jellyfish is a tiny, see-through creature that is smaller than a pinky fingernail. It originated in the Mediterranean Sea, but ships have accidentally carried it to warm coastal waters all over the world. This animal is biologically immortal and can potentially live forever because it never dies of old age.

When it gets sick, injured, or starves, it shrinks into a blob and sinks to the ocean floor. It then transforms its own adult cells back into a baby polyp colony to start its whole life cycle over again.