A very important part of the life of living things is the ability and opportunity to reproduce, to create offspring. Reproduction is the process of one or more living things creating another living thing. Your parents created you. A mother and father dog reproduce, creating puppies. By reproducing, living things are able to pass on their characteristics to another generation.
Living Things Die
Something that is definitely unique to living things is that they die.
Anything that is alive will eventually die. The period of time that something is expected to live is called the living thing‘s “lifespan.” The lifespan of living things can vary significantly.
Some things have a lifespan of only a few hours or a couple of days. Some bacteria and insects, for example, begin their lives, mature, reproduce, and then die, all within a couple hours. Other living things can live for many years, such as an elephant that might live for 70 years, and a human which can live for 100 years. Then there are the living things which seem to live forever. A bristlecone pine tree can live 5,500 years. That means that today there are bristlecone pine trees alive that began their lives before ancient Rome, and even before many of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Even these long living organisms will all eventually die.
