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Asked by petsrcool to Christina, Colin, Jess, Samaneh, Steve on 25 Jun 2013.
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Colin Dick answered on 25 Jun 2013:
Hi there!
As far as I know, there is no single characteristic that defines how long an animal lives. For example, being the smartest or biggest or fittest animal is not enough when it comes to having a good life expectancy. It seems to be a balance of all of the above, as well as the number of predators and availability of food. Most of the animal that live longer than humans seem to live in the sea or, at the very least, are amphibious.
Humans are a bit of an anomaly in the animal kingdom because we’re the smartest and we’ve managed to increase our life expectancy dramatically. In 1900 it was just 48.5 years and in 2013 it is more like 80 years.
Cheers,
Colin.
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Christina Pagel answered on 26 Jun 2013:
There is also a theory how long animals live is regulated by the speed of their heartbeat…the idea is that eventually the heart will wear out so there are only so many heartbeats you can have in your life and animals with slower heartbeats (like elephants, tortoises etc) live longer than those with quicker heartbeats (like mice, cats etc). I don’t know how accepted this theory is and humans are certainly the anomaly there!
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