Which species of fish has the shortest lifespan? (2024)

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Which species of fish has the shortest lifespan? ›

The Sign Eviota, Eviota sigillata, a tiny coral reef fish, completes its entire life cycle within an eight week period. This species has the shortest lifespan of any vertebrate.

American sand-burrowing mayflies (Dolania americana) have the shortest adult lives of any recorded species, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Biodiversity Portal. Males live less than one hour once they reach adulthood, and females have just five minutes to breed before they die.

The seven-figure pygmy goby (Eviota sigillata) is a tiny marine fish found in the Indian Ocean and West Pacific, living amongst coral reefs. This species has the shortest lifespan of any vertebrate—up to 59 days. They spend about three weeks as larvae, two weeks settling on reefs, and three weeks as adults.

Fish breeds and lifespan. Fish have a bad reputation for short lives, but with proper care they can live for at least three to five years. Some breeds live a decade or longer. For example, the common goldfish, one of the most popular pet fish breeds, grows to be up to eight inches long and can live for twenty years.

Many freshwater fish average about 1 to 3 years of life. Some of the more popular species with this short lifespan include fantail guppies, swordtail platy, mollies, rainbow fish, hatchet fish, corydoras catfish, some cichlids, rasboras and tiger barbs.

The lifespan of a mayfly is 1 day. The life cycle of mayflies passes through four stages: egg, nymph, subimago, and imago. Their sole purpose of existence is to pass on their genetics to a new generation in a very short period.

A tardigrade, known as a water bear, is shown magnified 250 times. These tiny aquatic invertebrates can go without water for 10 years, surviving as a dessicated shell. Microscopic, bear-shaped animals called tardigrades are one of the most resilient animals on earth.

Elephants are the largest land mammals in the world, so it's perhaps not surprising that they have the longest pregnancy of any living mammal: African elephants are pregnant for an average of 22 months, whilst for Asian elephants it's 18 to 22 months.

(Read about coelacanths, an ancient fish that can reach a hundred years.)

Do shorter men live longer than taller men? ›

Researchers also discovered that “shorter, smaller bodies have lower death rates and fewer diet-related chronic diseases, especially past middle age.” The lifespans of shorter people appear to be longer than their taller counterparts, the paper says.

But the rougheye rockfish (Sebastes aleutianius) can soldier on for more than 200 years. The oldest known rockfish was 205 years old, Sudmant tells Haaretz. As we are unlikely to have encountered the one that lived longest, the inference is they can live longer than that.

The two aquatic animals which have no gills are dolphins and whales. These animals must come to the surface in order to breathe as they cannot breathe underwater without gills. Was this answer helpful?

Various other fish are known as mudfish because they live and hibernate in mud. They are not lungfish, however, for they do not breathe by means of an air bladder. The little mud minnows (Umbra limi) of North America and Europe burrow in mud in search of food and hibernate in mud.

Weasels have one of the shortest lifespans of any mammal, living for just one or two years. They make up for their short life by having up to 13 kits in a litter and up to three litters a year.

Men born in the Lesotho have the lowest life expectancy of the world as of 2023, reaching only 50 years. The lowest life expectancy for women in the world in 2023 was for girls born in Nigeria, with only 54 years. Except for Afghanistan, all the countries with the lowest life expectancy in the world are in Africa.

If so, the one with the shortest lifespan is probably Arabidopsis (a mustard relative) with a seed-to-seed lifespan of about a month. The weedy ephemerals are very short-lived plants whose entire life cycle takes less than a growing season due to the recurring human disturbances such as ploughing.