Why do some creatures have longer lifespans than others?

Question

Some insects only live for a day, but then a tortoise can live for hundreds of years.

Answer 1

Actually telomeres are repeating series of nucleotide bases at the ends of chromosomes. They seem to be the key to how long different species live. Scientists have determined that related species with different lengths of telomeres have different lifespans, those with the most telomeres live the longest. Every time cells divide, a certain number of telomeres are removed from the chromosomes. When the chromosomes get too low in telomeres, they cannot divide anymore. Cell death, or apoptosis, follows soon aferwards. Cancer cells are immortal due to the presence of the enzyme telomerase, which prevents the loss of telomeres during cell division. Sperm cells also have telomerase.

Answer 2

Damn maybe metabolism/cellular decay! On the flip side there are emzymes called telomeres that help regulate cell reproduction.

Theres also sum fruit flies that were forced to reproduce at successive later stages in life resulting in a 5th gen. fruit flie that lives many times longer then either its ancestors or other fruit flies existant outside of that expirement. This may be a reason why ppl these days live much longer then man just a few hundred years ago.

Now adays things are easier for most of us in the developed world and so we live longer with less physical stress. Also it should be observed that typically the faster an organism dies the more offspring it can produce such as Ascaris worms in ya azz that lay thousands of eggs a day compared to a cat with 6 kittens.

Answer 3

Metabolism. Animals with a higher metabolic rate die faster. An easy way to measure this is by counting the heartbeats because all animals breathe every 4 heartbeats. And it's true, the higher the heartbeat rate per minute, the higher the breathing rate per minute and the shorter the life span. In mammals this is true for all, except humans, who should have a life span similar to that of sheep, but have modified other metabolic factors to achieve a longer life.

Answer 4

I think it has to do with heart beat and size.
A mayfly very small and very fast heart beat lifespan 1 day
A cheater big but a very fast heart beat lifespan 10 years
A dog small and a fast heart beat lifespan 15 years
A giant tortoise smaller than a cheater but a slow heartbeat lifespan 200 years
A red wood tree huge and no heart beat lifespan 500 years

But there are some exceptions like humans and flowers

Answer 5

ok, we could be very hypothetical for a 2d. it extremely is generic that we, as human beings got here from a team of roughly 6000, back while a substantial cataclysm wiped out the conventional public of our species. It would not be unreasonable to assert that a species of human beings with elongated existence spans existed forward of us, yet died out in the time of that disaster that killed of a significant majority of our race through some genetic weaknesses or in simple terms have been in very low #'s while it surpassed off. you will might desire to look up what the disaster replaced into in case you prefer to comprehend greater, i can't remember of the proper of my head. back it extremely is solely hypothetical. nonetheless i would not positioned it out of the area of threat that some human beings as quickly as lived with very lengthy existence spans.

Answer 6

The faster the heartbeat - the shorter the life!

That's my theory anyway!

Chill and live longer!

Answer 7

Yes it's all to do with heartbeat rate. Maybe there's a prehistoric thing going on too.

Answer 8

It's the way nature made them.

Answer 9

genetics or preadators.