Meet the world’s only immortal animal

They are no more immortal than most reptiles, which can live forever until they are killed by predation, disease, or a similar outside force.

They may be the only hydrozoa that are “immortal,” but they are certainly not the only animals that are.

i dont think you understand Ethan
reptiles arnt immortal they do die of old age
these creatures are amazing because they become young again they kind of grow a new young body inside in parallel with their old cells so that after a while only new young cells remain

im sure they will eventually die i don’t think they could continue that indefinitely

it would be interesting to know how much memory is retianed over their cycles

Well, not all reptiles can live forever, but there are species that exhibit “negligible” senescence. Most of these have been assigned a maximum theoretical lifespan of close to 200 years, but we really don’t know if they can live past that or not. Usually external factors contribute to their death long before that, and I’m sure it is much the same with these hydrozoa.

Either way, this is a unique and incredible discovery, and I’m not trying to belittle it.

Ethan is right. Some reptiles, including several species of turtles, are immune to old age. Unlike humans and other mammals, once they reach sexual maturity, they stop aging.

Don’t believe us? Check out an article about it in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/science/12turt.html?_r=1

Who wrote this? This article is an example of some of the worst writing. Goes hand in hand with other bloggers and content authors these days. Does no one read what they write aloud?

“…after they completed their life cycle.”
“…after they complete their life cycle.”

“Eggs and sperm from an adult jellyfish (medusa) and they then develop into polyp stage.”

Thee above sentence is just plain wrong. “…from an adult jellyfish … (and do what?) and they then develop..)” What do they do before they “develop into polyp stage”?

If I took it out of water, it will die. Thus, not immortal.

This thing ain’t special either. There are many creatures that could live many years past reaching maturity without aging.

so what – i’ve got a timelord in my garage that does the same thing

“As far as scientists have been able to find out, this change renders the hydrozoa virtually immortal.”

There are two important qualifications in that sentence: “As far as scientists have been able to find out” and “virtually.”

Common sense tells us that the ability to actually live forever would be impossible to verify empirically, whether it is for turtles or for hydrozoa. Stop calling people idiots.

Time to thumbs-down this article. Science for the intellectually challenged written by the grammatically inept

Awesome !! This fantastic article, or rather the comments, gave me Great entertainment!

Always a good laugh to see all the web urchins out there completely miss the point on a great article and comment their heart out about a useless crap.

They all got caught up with a single word “immortal” and ignored the wonders of the article and what a neat creature this really is.

I had recently heard the same about some species of turtles where their cellular degeneration rate stops after reaching their “maturity” leaving them in a state of seemingly frozen age.

Imagine the age of creatures like this on the earth today if humans where not polluting it at a fantastic rate and beating it like it was a 7 years old pinata birthday prize. :)

Cheers, thanks again for this wonderful post.
-Jim

WOW!!

It is an interesting article! I am curious to know if plants may be included in this discussion on immortality. They are organisms as well; and some have been documented to live indefinitely. Take the Aspen tree for example. The trees that we see clustered in their lemon colored groves at the hight of autumn are actually sprouts from the same rizome/root. The larger the grove, the more ancient the plant. The largest grove straddles the border of Utah and Idaho. Scientists have proclaimed it one of the oldest known species ever discovered and have taken steps to protect it. Funguses that carpet the underlying layers of leaves and dirt, eating the discarded and dead have massive weaving mats that stretch for acres. They posess both animal and plant charactoristics. Funguses are so pervasive and renewable in their growth structure that botanists have yet to even guess at the age of some of those mysterious,underworld colonies. There is even a type of shrub whose roots radiate out in a circular pattern. It lives in desert regions and is considered one of the longest living organisms on the whole planet. The time for the ring of roots and its attending shrubs to broaden it’s circumfrence by one meter takes two and a half thousand years. The largest ring is over a mile on circumfrence. There are many plants and probably many animals that might be considered immortal that we have yet to discover. (Also, please forgive my spelling errors.) It is an exciting article I hope that scientists and researcher find many more ‘Methuselas’ hidden in the nooks and crannies of our great planet.

It would if they didn’t have any natural predators. However, I’m sure they do, so they get eaten just like any other animal.

..didn’t you swear not to eat things you find on the internet?

Right, well, firstly, I think it’s fascinating that these can renew themselves in such a manner; recenlty, it was suggested that similar traits might be triggerable in human cells, but I think that will take a great deal more time. Anyways, I would like to address YAEPPR, and say that similarly, several pollens and seeds from thousands of years ago, and also waterbears (if you don’t know what they are, google them, they’re amazing little creatures) can stand suspended animation for periods in excess of ten years. I do agree, we need some clarification of the term immortal. Immortal, in this context I believe should be taken to mean incapable of death by old age. It is true that several testudines (turtle and tortoises), specifically tortoises (I recall reading an article specifically about Galapagos tortoises) “suspend” the rate of decay within their bodies after reaching maturity. INdeed, no-one has thus far been able to prove that they can succumb to death by old age, but it is not that which eventually kills them, but instead pollution, toxins in the air, starvation, predation, etc. Theoretically, thus far, it is thought that they can, much like this creature, continue to exist for increidble tracts of time. Unlike this creature however, the tortoises are not generating new bodies for themselves every so often – which is what this article seems to suggest that the Hydrozoa can do. As Ethan said, they do have predators however – Turtles, for one, feed on jellyfish and other gelatinous bodied sea dwellers. For a creature to be truly immortal – that is, incapable of succumbing to death – it would have to have no predators and perfect conditions all the time, which we know is not technically possible.
Randy, I think you have a very fair point about the plants. And indeed, I don’t think we will ever truly know how old some of the subterranean fungi are.
To that end, I think this is quite a funky process, and it’s interesting that it’s unique within the animal kingdom (note – there is a possibility that this can be observed in plants too), but it’s an overstatement to state that these creatures are immortal.

If you want to know where this article came from, click my name thing – it’s a link to the article published in The Biological Bulletin. It’s quite interesting. Much more scientific than this article, which was obviously simplified for the general view of the public.

Enjoy.

FOR THE RECORD:

Even animals whose organs don’t degrade over time are not immune to old age. Any biologist will tell you that your cells lose DNA every time they replicate, and eventually they start cutting out important information. Most bacteria are immune to this phenomenon because they have circular DNA, and the process can be slowed or stopped with DNA-lengthening enzymes, but animals haven’t evolved enough to overcome it as an obstacle.

Biologist, I am not aware of any studies specifically establishing that tortoises are subject to cellular senescence.

By the way, when you say “DNA-lengthening enzymes,” are you referring to telomerase?

They may live forever but are they having fun? Doesn’t look like it

Some people commenting on this article seem to not understand the whole point of the article. This article does not mean that these hydrozoa are literally immortal, the article is emphasizing on the fact that the process of which these hydrozoa go through after maturity, if external factors such as pollution and diseases are excluded, theoretically enable them to live forever. Meaning that age is a factor but they get a reset button to start all over again. So, stop getting all obsessed on the “immortal” and think of the “process”. They definitely live longer because of this process but their immortality is dependent on external factors that may affect their productions of new cells.

“Time to thumbs-down this article. Science for the intellectually challenged written by the grammatically inept”

What a fine example of the queen’s English!

As an English teacher, I have to agree with those complaining about the grammar. When a writer omits verbs from an independant clause it renders the sentence incomprehensible. This looks like it something accidentally got deleted. Still, this is not a long article. How hard would it be to have a second person give it a once-over before posting it?

this world is filled with awesome creatures!! thumbs up!!

@ Halitus,

Your arguement falls at the suggestion that new cells replace the old ones and thats what makes it immortal.. because if i remember, humans shed old cells and replace them with new ones, in fact thats what makes us live….

Everything that lives, exits, or is thought about, is immortal. Life is no more real than the spiritual goo that caused it in the first place. The question is not if the jellyfish is immortal, the question is why do we think it is?
Death is only transition, life is only the result of that transition. Somethings evolved past the transition stage and simply stay and exist. Your death and rebirth cycle is immortality. Find yourself, an you will see this for yourself.

That IS way cool. Hey, you don’t mean MacLeod as in Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, do you? Because, he’s wayyyy hotter than that thing. I don’t mean to be shallow. If you mean Connor…I can see that.

Disregard what Nicholas B says above me. He’s confusing his spirituality and mysticism with the concrete, scientific world. Humans can’t change the “frequency at which their environment vibrates” – whatever the hell that means. Just because you read a factoid in a book that aligns with your personal belief system, doesn’t mean it’s correct, or even real. There is such a thing as bad science.

As for this article – it’s only four paragraphs in length. First grade book reports are four paragraphs in length. It isn’t until the last sentence that we get something that sounds even remotely educational or scientific. I’d be hesitant to go around regurgitating this story as fact.

Feliz Navidad…..Feliz Navidad….Hezeto nanya hezeto nanya feliz nedad……I wanna wish you a merry Christmas….I wanna wish you a merry Christmas…….I wanna wish you a merry Christmas from the bottom of my heaart <3 :)

So….from a completly non-scientific standpoint, these things are like Elves. Unless something (an outside force of any nature) kills it, IT WILL NOT DIE.

Anthony Says:
December 7th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

If I took it out of water, it will die. Thus, not immortal.

This is interesting, but I would not use the term immortal.

I didn’t read through all the comments so maybe this point has already been made but does anybody see the relation between this thing “becoming young again” and the process of reproduction?

I think Halitus touched on the key variable here, how much memory is retained through this process? If none then I don’t see any difference between this and human reproduction except that the organic matter that makes up it’s body is just recycled, which in a way is also true for humans, just not as literally.

If all memory is retained, then I guess we won’t really know if it’s the same as human reproduction until the theory of ancestral memory is proved or disproved.

Dean: the fact is it “concrete” makes it too rigid for change, hence the reason you were so fast to discredit me with nothing to back it up.

All you said was simply: “ignore him I don’t understand him wtf?”

Everything is a collective of particles that vibrates at a certain wavelength, everyone knows that. The level of conscious that one or a collective operates will either raise or lower the surrounding vibration. The reason you laugh when someone else laughs, or the reason war can never equal to balance in it’s self. Pretty simple stuff.

People who judge and analyse the messenger completely; this usually points out to the fact they have nothing to say about the substance of the message.
If you do not understand something and it doesn’t fit in with your ‘belief system’ simply ask and you will find the common ground.

Is this like their way of reproduction, or are they able to reproduce in a way that has nothing to do with this phenomenon?

Well there is no such cause of death called “old age” it is something within the body which fails wich causes the death. couldn’t we technically be immortal if we could renew our organs and such?

what do you mean is that it can reverse her own growth process????
if this is the case, i’m shocked just a little because if you recall, in the bible it is written something about an apostle that will never die!

Misspellings and grammatical erros suck but they always seem happen especially when you call attention to it.

II LIKE COCONUTS

Chaz: yes I remember Metroid! Excellent series! :D

Has anyone done an analysis of the telomeres of these creatures as they continue to “renew” themselves? If the telemores have get smaller after rounds DNA replication then the definition of immortal would be innacurate as eventually once the telemores have fully deteriorated then coding DNA would be lost and the organism may begin to have its functions impaired.

it’s obvious this title is a bit over exaggerated, what it means is if there’s no external factor to their life cycle as in sickness, predators, pollution, etc.. these animals can live forever, just like turtles can live a couple of centuries, what intrigues me though and i would like to look it up if they ever make an article about it, is their ability to retain memory, if they can retain it, which would be awesome so see if the cellular change in their bodies affect or doesn’t affect their brain capacity

wait whats that what i know what that is thats the sound of zombies!!!! how much u wuna bet scientists are test the stuff from the jelly in humans its all guna go horibly wrong and it will be resident evil all up in this shit

@ Ethan.

Reptiles cannot live forever. Their cells break down over time and they are subject to the same aging processes as you and I. While they may have long lifespans, they are by no means immortal.

So if these animals are “virtually” immortal, how long is one expected to live? There has to be at least one in a lab or a zoo that has undergone observation. Perhaps the term immortal is refering to the fact that it regenerates itself, remaining forever young until killed off by something or other.

shut up ethan ohhhh

There can be only one!

Not only is this article a complete grammatical mess, but it doesn’t even have a logical flow. Do you not have editors? I can’t even believe people are responding to this in a serious manner.

I don’t think you people understand. See, I am the Turritopsis nutricula! I am Joe! I am HIGHLANDER. We Highlander are IMMORTAL. I was born 2,437 years ago. In that time, I’ve had three wives. The last was Shakiko, a Japanese princess… When Shakiko died, I was shattered. I would save you that pain.

Interesting. However, the premise is degraded by the fact that the author uses the diction of an 8th. grader.
Let’s vote.
Shouldn’t science articles be “proof read” by the publisher’s mother.

All in favor say…?

are you stupid? there are no reptiles that are immortal. they die because of internal organ failure (just like every other animal dies). lets say an alligator gets shot in the head. it does not die from the bullet, but from the lack of brain function operating its internal organs. snakes, geckos, and lizards can all have brain aneurysms, pulmonary embalisms and all sorts of other complications due to the breakdown of their organs resulting from old age. this IS the only animal species that does not die from complications of old age.

Here is the most scientific text i could find about animals that may not age: fascinating:

Some animal age, Others may not:
http://www.senescence.info/nature.html

…I was wondering if anyone has tried to find out if there is any replicative senescence occuring to those animals… you know this is officially the name of old age death for all the animals: the shortening of the chromosomes due to the absence of TERT activity in those cell systems (much wider than “organisms”). If a cell system, with neural signs (you should know that just by having nerves, you can be called an “animal” inambiguously), can retain TERT activity for ever, his chromosomes are never going to shorten, cell cycle arrest is never going to happen, thus old age is not going to occur.

…and I just realised, that some BIOLOGIST has already mentioned all that. I assure you his was MORE than right!!!

the one on the picture is not Turritopsis nutricula, but Turritopsis rubra, not immortal friend of Turritopsis nutricula living by New Zeland. Turritopsis nutricula lives in western part of Atlantic ocean.

thought.. why dont we try to replicate the gene that does this and i dont know try it on a rat and if it works try it on a person?!

John Bell Water bears die but they can survive things we cant like 10000 rads of radiation or 300 degree farhnheit and -200 and the vacum of space

Species of the genus Hydra (also within the class Hydrozoan) are also considered biologically immortal. I believe they go through the same process of transdifferentiation as Turritopsis nutricula, but I’m not sure about that.

I ‘get it’ and am amazed! The *closest* humans have come to this and this still amazes biology, is human organ donation. -The heart of a 50-year old man given to a teenager will ‘become smaller’ and youthful to ‘match’ the needs of the body! -The heart is ‘regenerated’ for the lack any better term, and will live a ‘new life.’ There is no reason to believe that this process cannot be repeated again when this teenager is in his 50s or 60s… re-donate the heart to *another* youth and again, the heart ‘becomes young’ again!

Other organs to the same thing… liver, kidneys, etc.. but HERE is an organism that does it on a full-body scale (despite being small body.) I am impressed!

Here we are, born to be kings…

I wish you would take a few more English and writing classes Andrei. You’re articles contain interesting subject matter but are very poorly written. Stumble has brought me here several times, and I’m always just a little disappointed.

Does a banana palm die? young shoots grow out from same plant and the old part of the palm dies but that dosent mean its the same palm i think the creature is showing characters like a tree its not immortal

again we meet the theory of language problem,

who defines what is immortal?
communities of average people? the movies they watch? or scientists?

if immortality would be matter that just doesn’t dissapear, then everything is immortal (but nuke’s cores) since matter, say, in a human after he dies is taken by the ground and used as food for plants, isn’t it?

although, conservative sccientists may define it as permanent non-stop of body’s mechanisms
even jurists may define immortal as something that can’t experience brain death only.

conclusion:
talking about immortality depens on WHO talks aboit it and what definition will they put to that word.

Thanks a lot for this post man. I’m becoming a fan of your blog, lol. I’m really into science, animals and space. An animal being able to cheat death, wow… that just sounds epic, I’ve never heard of this animal before. I’m surprised I haven’t seen it on Discovery/ History/ Animal Planet yet.

Always keep working wonderful work!

i just reacently started a project for my school talking about endangered animals and i came apon this magnificent creature and started reading this… blog i guess u could call it that… but i was reading what some people put and id like to make this very clear its not immortal that word is mearly used to discribe its seemingly endless lifetime im pretty sure if u stabed,shot, or bombed the creature it would die but metaphoricly if nothing messed with it and it lived without being harmed in anyway its livetime would be… quite possibly… for forever.

thanks for reading this :) and id really appreciate it if anyone of u were a geologist or a form of scientist who would toutor me for i am only 14 years of age interested in the study of rocks and marine animals and that will hopefully be my future job… i am easy to teach im a fast learner and im very ethusiastic plz consider aiding me in my goal of being a geologist :)

They don’t have brains so they don’t have memories. The amazing things about them is that they revert to a sexually immature stage and begin life again. It’s more like reversing the life cycle than being immortal. But they do however evade death by completing their life cycle. But not death.

About the reptiles: Reptiles age much slower than humans, but that doesn’t make them immortal. We age a lot slower than some species of flies, they live only a few days, hours, or weeks. in optimal conditions. (depending on the species) But that does not make us immortal.

Does the Turritopsis Nutricula have circular chromosomes? I’m not quite sure how that all works, but, if they have circular chromosomes, won’t they continue forever? Is that how immortality is achieved? There aren’t telomeres are the end of those chromosomes, so, do they not deteriorate?

nothing is special don’t wonder but believe in Jesus.

lafin…lik dat …but u r funin man…

This is an issue caused by your screen resolution. I’ll talk to our technical staff soon to have this fixed. Thank you for letting us know. Have fun reading ZME Science :)

Don’t wonder but believe in Allah.

Or the Buddha.

dude, you do know that immortal, doesnt mean that you cant be killed right?

the term “immortal” simply means that you cant die of age, think about the greek titan, Cronus. he was immortal, but when his son (zeus) supposadly chopped him to peices, he was dead.

immortal means that you dont die of age or disease, but something can kill you.

Andrei, YOU wrote this interesting Science article real well and with intrigue, kept my attention to the end.. Good JOB! Blessings in all your School and Life Endeavors!

YOU FORGOT CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS =O

Time Lord jellyfish!

sounds like a fd allergy or more like a lactose intolerance . very common . they have tabs that provide the enzyme to chg that fact do you have probs w/ reg milk ? bye

You’re such a fag, why on earth would you write such a long response about absolutely nothing? 99% of the people with the ability to read your post have already taken enough science classes to understand the whole matter can’t be destroyed or created concept. Clearly the definition of immortality (as used here) is that the organism would remain in its current life cycle, remain the same conscious state that it always has, and would not change into anything else. Also, not “everything is immortal”, you just have a shitty understanding of what “mortal” means, for instance a rock can neither be mortal nor immortal because it was never alive to begin with. Immortality doesn’t even fit this jellyfish because if one were to wash up on the beach and you smacked that motherfucker with a hammer believe it won’t be crawling back into the ocean to continue on its god-like lifespan. You’re lucky there are people like me in the world willing to waste my time to make people like you less of a bitch.

Jesus can choke on my dick

“Clearly the definition of immortality (as used here) is that the organism would remain in its current life cycle, remain the same conscious state that it always has, and would not change into anything else.”

A Hydrozoa has no conscious state to remain in and it clearly does change into something else. Indeed changing states is the essence of the immortality of the animal.

“Immortality doesn’t even fit this jellyfish because if one were to wash up on the beach and you smacked that motherfucker with a hammer believe it won’t be crawling back into the ocean to continue on its god-like lifespan”

I think you are confusing the concepts of ‘imperviousness’ with ‘immortality’ – immortality is the *ability* not the *actually* of living forever. In a very real sense Hydrozoa are biological immortal they are not however physically impervious to hammer blows.

You are lucky there are people like me in the world willing to waste my time to make people like you less ignorant.