[imagesource: Wikimedia]

The oldest living mammal, based on current scientific knowledge, is the bowhead whale–which can live for up to 200 years.

These amazing mammals are common in the harsh Arctic environment, where fewer diseases and predators threaten them. But humans still pose a danger, or at least did when natives of the area were still allowed to kill whales each year.

Times may have changed, but back in 2007, a team of whalers found evidence of just how long the whales can carry scars from previous ‘unenlightened’ times when they discovered an ancient harpoon tip still embedded in the neck of a 50-foot bowhead whale.

The harpoon, dating back to 1880, was set in a 30-centimetre layer of protective blubber bowhead whales rely on to regulate their temperature in the arctic conditions – which was also likely how the whale managed to escape its attackers 130 years ago.

Its survival is all the more amazing considering that it wasn’t your typical hand-thrown harpoon in the vein of Moby Dick. In the 1880s, the whaling business began employing “bomb lances,” which were especially useful for whaling in the Arctic, where whales may breach the ice in response to any threat.

The explosive tips of the bomb lances fired from whale cannons would burst shortly after they penetrated the whale’s skin. Whale populations were wiped out as a result of this new, deadly-efficient innovation.

When it came to the blue whale, technological developments in whale hunting and tracking led to the extinction of nearly 99% of the species.

With a detonated harpoon point in its flesh, the bowhead whale somehow survived the attack and lived for an additional century, a stunning achievement that eventually helped our scientific understanding of these creatures. Before harpoon points in bowhead whale meat were found (and several other comparable findings have been reported), the oldest whale that was known to science was a fin whale that was 114 years old.

Although 200 year is a good inning for whales, it’s by far not the oldest living creature on the planet. Greenland sharks are estimated to live between 300 to 500 years, and the Ocean quahog, a species of clam found in the North Atlantic, can live for over 500 years. Nothing compares to some species of glass sponges though, who can live for thousands of years.

None of them, however, have been found to spend a century with a harpoon stuck in their sides.