The longest-lived animal in the world is a clam found deep in Iceland
The latest research results from British scientists indicate that a clam named "Ming" has been identified as the longest-lived clam in the world. . animal. Ming grows on the seabed of Iceland and the texture of its shell shows it is now 405 years old. Scientists will study its growth process in more detail to discover the secret of its longevity.
According to the British "Sunday Times" report on the 28th of last year, scientists from the School of Marine Sciences of Bangor University in the United Kingdom captured more than 3,000 shells empty and 34 surviving shells on the seabed. of Iceland in the northern Atlantic Ocean.
The length of these lights is approximately 8.6 cm.
It owes its name to the Ming dynasty in China.
Ming is a round mollusk, so named becauseIts initial period of growth occurred during the Ming dynasty in China.
"We didn't know they were minnows," said Alan Warren Michael, who participated in the capture that year, "so we sent them to the lab." The British charity "Help the Elderly" spent 40,000 pounds (about 80,000 US dollars) to commission experts to study the exact age of these animals and their growth process on the seabed.
As the Ming body shells have a total of 405 textures, scientists ultimately concluded that these animals had survived for 405 years. They are 31 years older than the longest-lived animal ever discovered.
The Times therefore joked that in the early years of the Ming dynasty, Britain was under the reign of Elizabeth I and the literary master Shakespeare was writing his " The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Lhe texture of the shell is like the growth rings of a tree trunk.
The texture of the shell is not only the basis for people to determine its exact age, but it also makes it a living specimen for recording environmental changes.
According to scientists, Ming shells only grow in summer. When the sea temperature is warm and food is abundant, Ming shells develop a vein with a thickness of about 0.1 mm each year.
It is precisely because the thickness of each Ming shell texture depends on the environment at that time that people can use it as a basis for understanding the ecological environment and climate changes on the seabed at that time.
“The texture of Ming shells is like the growth rings of a tree,” said Professor Chris Rickardson, a marine life expert who led this research.“We know that the ocean is generally round. for more than 200 years and “encode” climate records in their shells. From these data we can build a detailed picture of climate change in the North Atlantic. ", their physical parts have been removed and the remaining shells will continue to be used for scientific research.
The mystery of longevity has not yet been solved.
Limited to current understanding of soft-bodied organisms, scientists are still unable to know how Ming lived on the seabed for centuries
“What we know about marine clams may be limited. "We need to understand how they maintain muscle vitality, prevent pathological changes and keep the nervous system intact for so long," said Richard Farage, who participated in the study.
Farage a dstated that Ming may have been in a calm and safe growing environment to survive for a long time. Due to this somewhat "boring" life, Ming's reproductive capacity may be low.
“Maybe reproductive capacity decreases with age,” says Rickardsson.
Determining the mystery of Ming's longevity won't be easy, however, says Help the Elderly People, which says Ming's discovery offers an opportunity for humans to explore. how to stay healthy for hundreds of years (Xinhua News Agency has a special article for this newspaper)
List of life expectancy of animals and plants
< p>American fox Pinus: 4844 years old<. /p>English oak: 1000 years
Lake sturgeon: 154 years
Right whale: 130 years
Humans (Jenny Carment): 122 years
Elephant: 78 years
Horse: 62 years
Japanese salamander: 55 years
Galapagos tortoise:177 years
Herring gull: 49 years
Bat: 32 years
Dog: 24 years
Rabbit: 18 years< /p>