currentsinbiology: Why Red Coral and Other Deep Sea Animals Can Live Over 500 Years If you were a re

Why Red Coral and Other Deep Sea Animals Can Live Over 500 Years
If you were a red coral, you’d have enough time to fulfill several bucket lists before you died. Though it’s hard to figure out what you’d put on them.
The red coral, which can live for five hundred years, is one of several marine species that make human lifespans look like a blink of the eye by comparison. In a new study, scientists have honed in on what enables some of these marine species to live for hundreds of years.
The stability of the deep sea environment likely helps deep-dwelling species live longer.
Staying put has its merits as well.
“Being sessile seems to correlate with at least the potential for longevity in marine animals as well as terrestrial plants,” Doak says.
Another factor, Monterro-Serra notes, is that these sessile species are clonal. They “form a colony of multiple units that are genetically identical, called polyps in the case of corals and gorgonians.”