Longest-lived amphibian

The longest-lived amphibian is the olm (Proteus anguinus), an aquatic troglodytic (cave-dwelling) salamander native exclusively to subterranean systems in Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Despite their niche habitat requirements, olms have been successfully maintained in several European zoos or semi-wild settings, where some specimens have lived for over 70 years. Moreover, based upon the average lifespan in related species being between 10 and 67% of the longest respective lifespans known for those species, ecophysiologist Yann Voituron and colleagues from the Université Claude Bernard Lyon (France) have calculated that even a conservative estimate of maximum lifespan for the olm is 102 years. This is at least almost double the maximum lifespan known for any other amphibian species. Their results were published in Biology Letters on 21 July 2010.

Following in a very distant second place behind the olm in terms of maximum lifespan among amphibians is the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus), with a longevity of up to at least 55 years – recorded from a specimen that died in Amsterdam Zoo, Netherlands, in 1881.

Indeed, this figure does not compare with even the average lifespan of the olm, which, when Voituron and colleagues used the same comparison methods as those utilized by them for obtaining its predicted maximum lifespan, yielded a figure of 68.5 years.