Sunday 4 December 2016

zoology - Do immortal organisms exist?


Do organisms exist that are able to live indefinitely if they are not killed by external factors?


Under external factors I would consider things like predators and natural disaster but not illness by bacteria for example.



Answer



I now found this Wikipedia article on biological immortality. It's pretty much what I was looking for.


Wikipedia describes the phenomenon as follows:



Biological immortality refers to a stable or decreasing rate of mortality from cellular senescence as a function of chronological age. Various unicellular and multicellular species may achieve this state either throughout their existence or after living long enough. A biologically immortal living thing can still die from means other than senescence, such as through injury or disease.



It has a list of such organisms as well, consisting of




Addendum: This blog post takes a good look into the myth of lobster immortality. It seems to be as much a myth as the result of any substantial observation.


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