Methuselah's Zoo What Nature Can Teach Us about Living Longer, Healthier Lives

by Austad, Steven N.

• ISBN13: 9780262547178
• ISBN10: 0262547171
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780262370608
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2023-08-15
• Publisher: The MIT Press
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Summary

Stories of long-lived animal species—from thousand-year-old tubeworms to 400-year-old sharks—and what they might teach us about human health and longevity.

Opossums in the wild don’t make it to the age of three; our pet cats can live for a decade and a half; cicadas live for seventeen years (spending most of them underground). Whales, however, can live for two centuries and tubeworms for several millennia. Meanwhile, human life expectancy tops out around the mid-eighties, with some outliers living past 100 or even 110. Is there anything humans can learn from the exceptional longevity of some animals in the wild? In Methusaleh’s Zoo, Steven Austad tells the stories of some extraordinary animals, considering why, for example, animal species that fly live longer than earthbound species and why animals found in the ocean live longest of all.

Austad—the leading authority on longevity in animals—argues that the best way we will learn from these long-lived animals is by studying them in the wild. Accordingly, he proceeds habitat by habitat, examining animals that spend most of their lives in the air, comparing insects, birds, and bats; animals that live on, and under, the ground—from mole rats to elephants; and animals that live in the sea, including quahogs, carp, and dolphins. 

Humans have dramatically increased their lifespan with only a limited increase in healthspan; we’re more and more prone to diseases as we grow older. By contrast, these species have successfully avoided both environmental hazards and the depredations of aging. Can we be more like them?

Author Biography

Steven N. Austad is Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the inaugural holder of the UAB Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging. He is the author of Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering about the Body’s Journey through Life and Real People Don’t Own Monkeys.

Table of Contents

Preface ix
1 Doctor Dunnet's Fulmar 1
I Longevity in the Air
2 The Origin of Flight 19
3 Pterosaurs: The First Flying Vertebrates 31
4 Birds: the Longest-Lived Dinosaurs 41
5 Bats: The Longest-Lived Mammals 59
II Longevity on the Earth
6 Tortoises and Tuataras: Longevity on Islands 81
7 Queen for a Lifetime 101
8 Tunnels and Caves 113
9 The Behemoths (Elephants) 129
10 Big Brains (Nonhuman Primates) 147
III Longevity in the Sea
11 Urchins, Worms, and Quahogs 177
12 Fishes and Sharks 199
13 Whales Tales 219
IV Human Longevity 
14 The Human Longevity Story 245
15 Methuselah's Zoo Moving Forward 269
Appendix 277
Notes 279
Further Reading 289
Index 293