ANIMALS' AGES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 184, 21 December 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

ANIMALS' AGES

WHALES LIVE FOR 1000 YEARS. Undoubtedly the longest-lived animal on earth is the whale, its span of existence being estimated by Cuvier at 1001 years. The next largest animal, the elephant, will, under favorable conditions, live 400 years. When Alexander the Great conquered Porus, King of India, he took a great elephant that had fought gallantly for the defeated king, named him Alfiax. dedicated him to the sun, and placed upon him a metal band with the inscription, "Alexander, the son of Jupiter, dedicated Ajax to the sun." The elephant was found alive 350 years later. The average age of cats is fifteen years; of squirrels, seven or eight years; or rabbits, seven; a bear rarely exceeds twenty years'; a wolf, twenty; a fox, fourteen to sixteen. Lions are comparatively long-lived, instances having been recorded where they reached the age of seventy years. Pigs have been known to live to the age of twenty years and horses to sixty, but the average age of the horse is twenty-live to thirty. Camels sometimes live to the age of a hundred, and stags are very long-lived, one having been taken by Charles VI. in the Forest of Senlis which bore about its neck a collar on which was engraved. "Caesar iioc mihi donavit." Whether or not this stag had actually lived since the days of one of the Caesars it is impossible to say, but the evidence seems good. Eagles occasionally and ravens frequently reach the age of a hundred years, and swans have been known to live 300 years. Efforts'have been made to connect the rapidity of the pulse-beat with longevity, but no logical conclusion can be reached. The pulse" of a lion beats forty times a minute, that of a tiger 00 times, horse 40 times, wolf 45 times, and an eagle 100 times.