Although getting old seems like an inevitable fact of life for us, some turtles may not live this fact very much. Evidence gathered from two new studies shows that several turtle species experience very little of what we technically refer to as the physical aging of our bodies. Turtles seem to be escaping the debilitating and cell-destroying effects of aging.
The ability to slow or even stop aging is seen in the Testudines, a team of reptiles that includes different turtles. In one of the new studies published in the journal Science, the team used data from several long-term field studies that focused on 77 species from 107 wild populations. These included not only turtles, but also amphibians, snakes and crocodiles.
These cold-blooded animals showed a greater diversity of aging rates compared to birds and mammals, and in the case of turtles, it’s believed that their bony shells and slow life rates (after initial reproduction) may help explain why they age so slowly.
Lead author Beth Reinke, assistant professor of biology at Northeastern Illinois University, said in a statement: “These various protective mechanisms can reduce the mortality of animals because they are not eaten by other animals. Therefore, they are more likely to live longer, and this puts pressure on them to age more slowly. The protective phenotype in turtles. “We found the greatest support for the hypothesis. It shows, once again, that turtles are unique as a group.”
While being cool-blooded doesn’t guarantee slowing down aging, the team found at least one species in each group, including frogs and toads, crocodiles and of course turtles, aged little or not at all.
“It sounds dramatic to say they never age, but basically their odds of dying don’t change with age once they’ve passed reproduction,” Reinke said.
Better environmental conditions mean slower aging, according to the second study, also published in Science. They studied 52 turtle species in zoo populations and found that 80 percent age more slowly than modern humans, and 75 percent have slow or negligible aging.
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