5 Animals that can Survive Almost Anything

If the Apocalypses would ever come, whether through a nuclear war, catastrophic climate change, and viral pandemic, not every living creature is going to die. Some animals are built to outlast almost anything that you throw at them. Here are 5 species that can withstand a catastrophic change that would most likely wipe out all the other animals on earth.

Cockroaches

In almost every post-apocalyptic movie or story, cockroaches are always present. These bugs, even though they usually end up at the bottom of our shoe, have actually been around for a little over 250 million years. They’ve survive a number of mass extinctions and they can also live in almost any weather condition. A few other features that makes this animal nearly impossible to extinguish is that they have the ability to regenerate most of their body-parts, hold their breath for a little under an hour and they’re also prolific breeders.

Mummichog

This is a type of fish that lives in the North America’s east coast. Unlike other fishes, this practically normal looking fish can live in almost any habitat, weather, salty or freshwater, cold or warm, and clean or polluted. Their amazing adaptability is because of their strange ability to actually activate or deactivate the majority of their genes, depending on their environment. For example, if the fish moved from fresh to salt water, it would turn off and on some 498 different genes to survive the changes.

Lingula

The most recent mass extinction wiped out about 85% of the animals that lived during that time, including the dinosaurs. But this little guy survived that using its ability to dig and burrow itself into the earth.  Many scientist consider this animal as a living fossil, in fact it even inspired Charles Darwin to coin the concept.

 Humans

There are five mass extinctions that happened throughout the earth’s history, with the most recent one happening about 65 million years ago. When it comes to enduring catastrophes, let’s face it. Brains count a lot when it comes to survival. Humans would have to be one of the most adaptive creatures in the planet. Although we’re most likely the cause of the catastrophic change, there’s a big change that our species as a whole, will survive and live through it.

Tardigrade

A popular animal used as subjects for survival studies, the tardigrades or water bear is arguably the toughest animal alive. You can find these animals almost everywhere, but you’ll have a hard time seeing them since they only grow to about 1 mm long. These creatures have been tested to survive, dehydration, freezing and boiling temperatures, the vacuum of space, radiation and extreme pressures.