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Posted by Nicodemus on April 18, 2003 at 18:39:41:
In Reply to: True or False: Turtles can never die of old age? posted by pyxis on April 17, 2003 at 00:07:57:
There was an interesting article in Discover magazine about turtles not dying of old age. I'd have to check my stack in my classroom, but it was within the last year. I'll get back to you on the exact issue next week if I can remember.
It was about turtles, but I'd imagine this would certainly apply to tortoises as well.
According to the researcher, he's never seen a turtle die of old age, only from cars, disease and animal attacks. Apparently he's been doing this for 40 years or so and some of the turtles when he started with were already pretty old.
The only problem with this statement is all chelonians live a long time and our life spans are too short to really be able to see how long they will survive in optimal conditions.
What I found VERY interesting is he said turtles actually become MORE sexually viable the older they get. Therefore OLD turtles should be protected more than young turtles.
Its kind of funny how we take for granted that "As an animal gets older, the chance reproduction decreases" (since that is how we work as well as pretty much all other animals), and it turns out we need to work completely oppositely to help turtle populations survive.
