1/1/2024 0 Comments Oldest animal age![]() ![]() "Can you see ribs? You look at how they're moving. "You look at how full the rump is," she says. Those pieces include things like muscle tone-animals become less toned as they age-and how the tail fits between an animal's hips. "You need to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together." ![]() "A carnivore like a lion or tiger is made to be secret and sly about what's happening to them," says Schmidt. There are other clues, but they may be harder to see. "A cat is going to take less care and time with their fur coat. ![]() But it is possible to see changes in their fur coats from a distance. Of course, you don't want to get too close to an elderly lion or tiger. "That's true for everything from house cats to big cats like an elderly lion or tiger." ( See an interactive experience on the Serengeti lion.) "Hair gets dry and brittle and gray as it ages," she says. So if you can see whites it means that an orangutan hasn't finished weaning yet.įor dating cats, you want to start out with the hair, says Tammy Schmidt, curator of carnivores and ungulates at the Philadelphia Zoo. Babies have white circles around their eyes that disappear gradually over time. One last marker? The whites of orangutan eyes. "They might have less hair if they're more stressed," adds Bastian. They do wrinkle and lose bone density, much the way older humans do. They basically mate away from the flanged males and try not to get caught."įemale orangutans don't have flanges. Unflanged males have a sneakier strategy. "It used to be thought that only flanged males could mate because the flange helps them emit long calls to attract females," she says. As they age and become over-the-hill orangutans, their flanges sag-much like our jowls.īut that's not always 100 percent accurate, says Bastian, because unflanged sexually mature males also exist. In wild male orangutans, zoologists look for something called a flange-or cheek pads-which are only visible on sexually mature dominant males. "It's very clear-you can differentiate a baby versus a juvenile versus later stages of life, by looking at wrinkly skin." "There are indications that are very similar to humans," says Bastian. Worn-down molars may indicate that a primate is older-or it may indicate that a primate eats food that requires a lot of heavy-duty chewing. Specifically, Bastian is looking at a primate's molars. "If I look at teeth, I have a pretty accurate idea of how old an animal is," she says. Below, a guide to what they look for in various species to determine age.Ī lot of primate aging has to do with teeth, says Meredith Bastian, curator of primates and small mammals at the Philadelphia Zoo. Zoologists must rely on visual cues, with a little bit of guesswork thrown in. Without x-rays or tissue samples, however, determining the age of an animal becomes a lot more difficult. And they can easily find out how old an animal is after death, by examining certain biological markers on an autopsy. Zoologists can take x-rays to look for growth markers in the skeletal structure. The bowhead whale-called the longest-living mammal on Earth-was found with a century-old harpoon pin lodged inside of it.īut determining the age of other animals-particularly those born in the wild-is not such an easy task. Jonathan and George-the tortoises-were well documented, having appeared in diaries and photographs over the years. Like all clams, Ming grew tree-like rings for every year it was alive. They make Lonesome George-the famous Galápagos tortoise who died last year at 100-seem relatively young in comparison.ĭetermining the ages of these particular animals was not overly difficult. There are accounts of 150-year-old whales and 115-year-old reptiles. ![]() Then there was Jonathan, a giant tortoise who was touted as the world's oldest living creature-until questions later emerged about his identity. It seems like every year, the world discovers a newest oldest animal.Īlmost a decade ago, it was Ming, the 405-year-old clam. ![]()
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