Methuselah's Zoo

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?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"For aspiring scientists and health care advocates."
— Library Journal

“It was refreshing to read Methuselah’s Zoo, the latest book from biologist Steven Austad, who expresses with clarity what we know and what we don’t know about aging.”
—Science

“I recommend Methuselah’s Zoo . . . a smartly written book . . . an entertaining tour of the whole animal kingdom in all its mad variety. I had no idea I would so enjoy reading about the naked mole rat, or indeed the “human fish”, a type of salamander that lurks in Balkan caves . . . Austad knows more about his subject than anyone on the planet.”
—The Telegraph


“Methuselah’s Zoo is not only fun to read—it is the best book written on the lives and lifespans of our long-lived relatives, teachers of what’s possible for our own species and for our individual lives.”
—David Sinclair, Professor, Harvard Medical School, author of New York Times and international bestseller, Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To
 
 “Steven Austad is a world class scientist who also has a rare gift for storytelling. His observations about the incredible range of longevity across species deeply informs human aging. Austad will draw you in with eloquent prose and leave you with compelling insights about aging.” 
—Laura L. Carstensen, Professor of Psychology and Founding Director, Stanford Center on Longevity
 
“A thrilling, hilarious and uplifting adventure into the astounding life of animals, debunking aging myths and revealing how the study of extraordinary animals can enable us to age more slowly. Brilliantly insightful and wonderfully hopeful!”
—Emma Teeling, Professor of Zoology, University College DublinSteven 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. Among his many varied jobs before becoming an academic, Austad was a Hollywood lion trainer and a naturalist guide for the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, traveling to Antarctica, the Galapagos, New Guinea, Ethiopia, Siberia, Mongolia, and elsewhere.