Popular Fallacies About the Age of Animals

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 23

Popular Fallacies About the Age of Animals

The most reliable contributions on the subject of the duration of animal life are those that have been compiled by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell and Major Stanley Flower, and their findings as recorded will surprise the average man and dispel somo cherished illusions. Among warm-blooded animals civilised man is easily the winner in life's race. Be it noted that this applies only to civilised man, for the so-called "savage," despite his open-air and undeniably "simple" life, approaches, j senility long before the average "city worker." Longevity of the kind associated with Methuselah is only to be met with in the realms of scientific truth among tho'cold-blooded creatures and among these records worthy of the itamo have only been set up by a few tortoises. A tortoise that recently died and had been kept for many years in the . Artillery Mess at Mauritius, was specially mentioned in the charter drawn up when tho island was taken from tho*-French in 1810. :At that date it was scheduled as a centenarian. An'.ithcr of these giant reptiles recently living on the island of St, Helena- Turns a co-prisoner with the great. Napoleon. Even the small European tortoises, such as arc sold on Costers' barrows, attain to a great' age. One..that died » few years ago had been kept in the same family in Cornwall for ninety-six '■'years. 7 Pish may live to a comparatively old age, although 'little, is '"known as to their potential.longevity. Somo freshwater sturgeons'.-kept in. Captain Vipan's aquarium,at Stcbbington Hall, in Northamptonshire, were obtained from the Volga some forty years back, while a big wcls, or giant catfish, from the Danube, which is still living in the 'Duk'e-of Bedford's lake at Woburn, was introduced into its present quarters over sixty years ago, writes E. C. Boulenger in the "Observer." It must be admitted that most fish life-records, liko most "fish stories," are unsatisfac tory. A classic example is that of a piko reputed to be-over two hundred years old, because a Queen Anne coin was found in its stomach. But however untrustworthy fish records may be, unimpeachable statistics are not wanting in the case of mammals and birds. Most mammals are comparatively short-lived, and those that attain to even thirty years and over .can be counted on one's fingers. They are Man, 100 years; elephants, 50 years; rhinoceroses, 45' years; hippopotami, 40 years; horses, 40 year*?; whales, 40 years; bears, 35 years; apes, '35 years;' cats, 30 years; and giraffes, 30 years. "" Although at-variance with popular traditions, large animals do not necessarily tend,-.'to live longer than small

ones. Whales, for instance, the largest of all mammals, do not, according" to experts, live to be more than about 40. Their rate of growth, it has been recently ascertained, is extraordinarily rapid, some of tho largest forms becoming sexually mature when under three years of age. Elephants are generally regarded"h-s living to a century or more, but available records indicate that the animal seldom exceeds the age of 50. Major Flower, who has examined the "dossiers" of some hundreds of elephants kept in India, as well as iv Europe and America, states that he is unable to find any evidence of an elephant living to the age of 100. He is of opinion that the life span of these animals is less than that of a man, averaging about 40. As man holds the record for longevity among mammals one would: expect tho man-liko apes to come next in order. The potential longevity of an ape, however; does not exceed 35 years. Tho record at the London Zoo is held by a chimpanzee, which died some years ago at" the ago of 20, suffering, from senile decay. Writing on the subject Of lions, animals which have been kept for over thirty years in captivity, Major Flower observes that this animal does ,so well in captivity that it outlives its normal span of life. He points out that a captive lion- sheltered from the elements aud from competitors in th. struggle for existence and with suitable food placed within reach, goes on living to an ago that it' could not attain in 'the wild state. A wild lion is in its prime of life when five arid six years old; after ten; years his chance of remaining alive -depends on his indi-. vidua 1 cleverness and tho absence of competitors for food: A few. birds havo acquired fabulous, reputations for longevity, and on no more stable ground than those attached to the elephant. The ravens in the Tower'of London, -for instance, are regarded with awe by many visitors who believe them to be centenarians.-' The records' in the guardroom, where every raven is attested like any soldier, shows the oldest cv.er* kept within its' walls to have been not more than tenyeifrs "oiY the strength." The parrot, apparently, justifies some of the stories told' about the bird's longevity,. since there are authentic records of specimens enjoying from seventy to one hundred and five years of raucous life, both in public menageries and under private ownership. Small birds live longer than one might suppose; a nightingale has been recorded to have' lived _ twenty-five years under'captive, conditions; a skylark twenty-four,1 a greenfinch twentythree, a'cardinal twenty-three,-and a I canary twenty.. ,