I Don't Mean to Scare You But... Crocodiles Can Live Forever

Crocodiles can live forever. I'll let that sink in for a second. In a world where scary news is thrown in our face 24/7, quite possibly the scariest thing I have seen recently is this fact. Given ideal living conditions, a crocodile (and alligators, too) could live forever... and continue growing while doing so.

How does a crocodile live forever, don't their muscles break down? Nope. Unlike humans (and hamsters and tigers and puffins and clowns and...), crocs and alligators do not experience senescence, or the gradual deterioration of the body with age. Limited motor skills, lowered senses, and increased risk of age-related diseases all decrease human chances of survival overtime, crocodiles don't experience this. This is called negligible senescence, and essentially means that they are biologically immortal. The only things that a creature with negligible senescence needs to worry about are predators, accidents illness and starvation.

Crocodiles are typically at the top of the food chain, so there is very little worry about predators. The main reason that you don't see 10,000 year old crocs wandering around Disneyworld is that they cannot find enough food to sustain themselves. In the case of crocodile negligible senescence, their cells don't deteriorate because they constantly are growing. Things just got even more terrifying. Crocodiles could continue to grow, long past the expected life span of any other creature. Why aren't there 50 foot crocodiles (outside of SyFy channel movies)? While crocodiles rarely have to worry about being eaten, they have to worry about eating. Most crocodiles die of starvation (or random crocodile diseases that aren't the point of this explanation) because the more they grow, the more they need food. As they grow and eat more, they clear out their environment of prey and eventually starve (or die of accidents as a result of increased desperation for food). Thankfully, we do not need to worry about a 50 foot crocodile, although it would be cool to simulate an environment needed to foster that growth just to see what it would look like. (pictured, a 28 foot crocodile shot by a hunter in 1957 long before photoshop)

BONUS! Other organisms that benefit from negligible senescence: sea urchins, clams, lobsters, alligators, tortoises, flounders (no word on mermaids) and certain types of trees.

Notable long-living organisms: Tortoise in a zoo in India that lived to be about 225.

The Pando (or Trembling Giant) Tree in Utah which is a clonal colony (group of genetically identical individuals, think: forest of clones) that has a root system over 80,000 years old and weighing over 6,000 tons (the heaviest organism in the world). It is 106 acres large and is made up of over 40,000 genetically identical trunks. There is great debate on the actual age of the organism (some estimates are over 1 million years old).

---

Recommended Listening While Reading: Whichever version of "Forever Young" you prefer.