Nature Bulletin No. 486-A   March 24, 1973
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:THE LIFE SPAN OF ANIMALS

Signs of senility, or extreme old age, are seldom seen in the wild. 
Animals living under natural conditions rarely approach their maximum 
possible age because of very high death rates due to infant mortality, 
diseases, predators, bad weather, accidents, or competition for food and 
shelter. For this reason, most of the reliable information about the 
length of the life span comes from zoos, where accurate records are 
kept and animals live under conditions almost ideally suited to prolong 
life. A mouse whose life is measured in months in the wild can survive 
years of captivity.

Large animals tend to live longer than their smaller relatives -- but there 
are many exceptions. For example, man is longer-lived than any other 
mammal. After him, in age, comes the elephant, hippopotamus, horse, 
rhinoceros, the bears, the big cats and many others which are larger in 
size. In general, birds live longer than mammals, and certain reptiles the 
longest of all. A giant tortoise is known to have lived 152 years on the 
island of Mauritius and then was killed accidentally or it might have 
lived a century longer. Even our common box turtle rather frequently 
reaches the 50-year mark. It is an interesting sidelight that there seems 
to have been no change in the life span of dogs, cats, horses and cows 
under thousands of years of domestication by man.

The following examples of extreme old age have been chosen from the 
reliable records of zoos and aquariums all over the world.

MAMMALS         YEARS
Elephant        69
Horse           50
Hippopotamus    49
Chimpanzee      40
Grizzly Bear    32
Bison           30
Lion            30
Tiger           25
Elk             22
Mountain Lion   20
Beaver          19
Wolf            16
Squirrel        16
Chipmunk        12
Cottontail      10
House Mouse     4

BIRDS           YEARS
Turkey Buzzard  118
Swan            102
Parrot           80
Great Horned Owl 68
Eagle            55
English Sparrow  23
Canary           22
Humming Bird      8

REPTILES        YEARS
Giant Tortoise  152
Box Turtle      123
Alligator        68
Snapping Turtle  57
Cobra            28
Cottonmouth      21

AMPHIBIANS      YEARS
Giant Salamander 55
Toad             36
Bullfrog         30
Mud Puppy        23
Green Frog       10
Newt              7

FISH            YEARS
Catfish          60
Eel              55
Carp             47
Mosquitofish      2

INSECTS         YEARS
Cicada           17
Ant (queen)      15

Locally, in the Lincoln Park Zoo, for instance, the Indian elephant, 
"Judy", died last year at 51. "Bushman", the famous gorilla, died there 
at 23 years and a pelican at 52. When the Shedd Aquarium was under 
construction in 1929 workmen, for a joke, stocked the central pool with 
carp. Twenty Eight years later, three or four of them still survived. 
Among the native wildlife in our Trailside Museum a gray squirrel has 
lived 16 years, a barred owl 15, a blue jay and a chipmunk each 12 
years. At the Brookfield Zoo, the pair of chimps, "Mike" and "Sally" 
died at 35 and 37 years old, respectively. They still have the same 
alligator snapper and "Cookie" the Cockatoo with which they opened in 
1934. Dozens of birds have lived 18 to 20 years and hundreds 8 to 15 
years. A spitting cobra died after 23 years in the zoo.