Age - a question for my all-knowing friends-list

[andrewducker]

Ed was asking on Facebook what it would be like if we didn't age visibly so much - after all, other animals don't tend to.

Is this actually true?  Thinking about it, most other animals don't seem to get wrinkled in the same way, nor does their fur turn completely white or all fall out.  But is this just some animals?  Do other animals age visibly the same way we do?  Or is there something odd about people?

Comments

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Dogs age visibly. Not in the same way, but grey around the snout is common.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Other mammals age visibly. We're just not as attuned to the subtle shifts in appearance as we are for people.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

animals in the wild rarely reach "old age" - human natural lifespan in "the wild" is probably only about 30 years old. The higher apes (particularly chimps and apes) do go grey, and do suffer male-pattern baldness with older age, but again, they would not normally reach these ages in the wild.

Other mammals kept by humans do seem to age; Cuddles is nearly 17 and looks a lot "older" than he did when he was 10. Dog owners will notice the same, and I would presume, for mammals at least, zoo workers would be able to point out similar aging.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Not all humans age all that visibly. There is a huge difference in the way people look at age 60 in terms of their ethnicity. As one (very pissed off) friend shared with me, when people tell us 'oh, you don't look your age" what they are inadvertantly saying is "you aren't Anglo Saxon/Celt".

I won't have wrinkles at 60.
I won't be grey at 60.
I will probably be fit and active at 60.


Also: animals don't seem to age because their life span is not artificially extended. As henriksdal notes above, when it is, then their aging patterns are more like that of us age-fighing humans.

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

I'd imagine there's something about social structure and visual clues in there as well - animals like humans and chimps that tend to live longer and live in groups may show visible signs of aging as that inspires other group members to care for the older ones, whereas other types of animals -don't- want to broadcast their age, as it would allow predators to pick them out more easily.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

In summation (assuming the obvious points have already been made in other comments)

1. Human Chauvanism. Of course we think that we age more visibly then other animals!

2. Relatively we live longer. For a fair comparison with animals we'd have to control for age.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I can judge ages (as in baby/ young adult/ old adult) with dogs and birds relatively easily, and those are the animals I've had most up-close dealings with (aside from humans). So ITTA with the people thinking it's about familiarity, at least in part.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Others have probably said this, but I believe we age because we don't die at relatively young ages. I can't remember the precise ages, but the average lifespan used to be somewhere in the 40s - although that included high infant mortality, too.

Other animals I think do age (think of elderly cats and dogs - which would probably have died long before had they not been in relationships with humans); and they don't live long past their reproductive lifespan.

[rattyfleef.livejournal.com]

Random net surfer.

Dogs get dreadful arthritis, so the limping etc. is clearly visible. Teeth wear down and yellow and rot, as with humans not granted regular dental care. I've noticed they tend to become very gentle in their extreme old age.

Birds tend to lose the luster of their coats and the feathers grow in ratty and ragged. In some species the nares enlarge or fade.

Cats get thinned coats, and they tend to grow very thin, as well as going grey around the face. They stiffen up. Some exhibit memory loss and/or dementia.

Gerbils also grey significantly all over, and their eyes sink in. Their movements become slower and more deliberate, and they sleep more.