The Tuatara lives for over a hundred years. BeautifulBlossoms/Shutterstock
The Conversation has an interesting post about the evolution of mammals. Did being small during the time of dinosaurs lead to limitations on how long mammals live? Mollusks, reptiles, and Greenland Sharks have been found to live 100's of years. Actually, many animals don't age and continue to grow throughout their lifetimes.
All human beings age. It is part of our biology and limits our lifespan to slightly over 120 years.
Not all animals experience ageing during their lives. Some animals’ bodies do not gradually degenerate as they get older the way our bodies do.
But for humans once they reach about age 30 their chance of dying doubles roughly every eight years. So even if you are fortunate enough to become a centenarian, your chance of dying each year will be high.
This high mortality reflects numerous other health problems, such as loss of muscle mass and general frailty, cognitive decline, loss of vision and hearing and many other degenerative changes that characterise the human ageing process.
