Study suggests surly Montana turtles may live to 100 (Spiny Softshell Turtles) via Herp Digest

Karl Puckett, Great Falls Tribune Sept. 1, 2018

A secretive turtle that lives in Montana's Missouri and Yellowstone rivers may live much longer than once thought, possibly as long as 100 years, a new study suggests.

Last summer, NorthWestern Energy, which operates dams on the Missouri River, teamed with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on a population study of spiny softshell turtles on the Missouri River.

"We thought it would be good to set up long-term population monitoring to make sure they are hanging in there and doing alright because they are a fairly sensitive species," said Steve Leathe, hydro license compliance professional with NorthWestern Energy.

The population study began at a 10-mile section of the Missouri River below the Judith River in the Judith Landing area.

In that section, 430 turtles were documented, 250 females and 180 males.

In a 10-mile section of the Missouri River 250 females spiny softshell turtles and 180 males were captured. (Photo: Steve Leathe)

"Probably the most surprising thing was during that work we recaptured 16 different turtles that were tagged in the same area 9 to 10 years ago," Leathe said. "We looked at the growth rate of those turtles. And it suggests these turtles live a lot longer than we ever thought.

"It's quite possible they live to be 50 to 100 years old. We won't know until we continue to track their growth and longevity," Leathe said.

Previously, most people thought the turtles lived 20 to 30 years, Leathe said.

The belief that the turtles may live longer is based on the observed growth rates of the recaptured turtles.

"We're seeing just really slow growth rates and when you project that out it suggests the biggest turtles out there we've handled could be well over 50 years old," Leathe said.

Spiny softshell turtles were captured as part of study in a 10-mile section of the Missouri River in the Judith Landing area. (Photo: Steve Leathe)

The age of fish can be determined by looking at scales which have growth rings but that's not possible with turtles, said Leathe, noting that the only way to verify turtle ages will be to continue the study over decades.

"They are pretty secretive so you don't see them that often," said Leathe, adding the turtles "are really cool.”

"But they are there.”

The latest population study of the elusive spiny softshell dovetails the first ever river-wide survey of the turtle in 2006 and 2008 from Morony Dam 15 miles northeast of Great Falls to Fort Peck Reservoir by PPL, which owned the dams at the time, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

That work found that the highest density of turtles was in an 80-mile core area in the middle of that 200-mile stretch, Leathe said.

Then, from 2010 to 2012, Brian Tornabene, a graduate research assistant at Montana State University at the time, attached transmitters on the turtles and tracked them. The groundbreaking work led to new discoveries about the little-studied turtles including where they nest, lay eggs and hybernate.

The turtle is uniquely adapted to the river and spends almost all of its time in the water.

Its long snout functions as a snorkel so it can lie unnoticed under the surface while breathing through the tip that pokes through the water. Its long neck darts to snatch fish and crayfish. 

In the winter, turtles hibernate underneath the ice, and they're feisty, biting and clawing at researchers who handle them

Leathe invented a  "turtle table," a wooden frame where the turtles can be placed to help keep them under control when they are being measured and tagged.

Steve Leathe invented a "turtle table" that helps to control spiny softshell turtles when they are being tagged and measured. "They are hard to handle," said Leathe, NorthWestern Energy's hydro license compliance professional. (Photo: Courtesy photo)

"They are hard to handle," he said.

As opposed to their hard-shelled cousins, spiny softshell turtles have soft, flat and flexible shells that allow them to swim like rockets through the water.

And the females are much larger than the males, Leathe said. That's called sexual dimorphism, a condition when there are marked dissimilarities in the appearance of the sexes. Males are sometimes 1 to 2 pounds. The largest female that researchers have documented in the Missouri River work weighed 16 pounds.

Steve Leathe of NorthWestern Energy holds two spiny softshell turtles. Males are much smaller than females. (Photo: Courtesy photo)

The bowhead whale lives over 200 years: Can its genes tell us why?

Date:

January 5, 2015

Source:

Cell Press

Summary:

A whale that can live over 200 years with little evidence of age-related disease may provide untapped insights into how to live a long and healthy life. Researchers present in a new report the complete bowhead whale genome and identify key differences compared to other mammals. Alterations in bowhead genes related to cell division, DNA repair, cancer, and aging may have helped increase its longevity and cancer resistance.

Continued ...

Female baboons with male companions live longer

Date:

September 10, 2014

Source:

Duke University

Summary:

Numerous studies have linked social interaction to improved health and survival in humans, and new research confirms that the same is true for baboons. A long-term study of more than 200 wild female baboons finds that the most sociable females live two to three years longer than their socially isolated counterparts. Socializing with males gave females an even bigger longevity boost than socializing with other females, the researchers found.

Continued ...

If You Thought Getting Old Sucks, Try Having A Lifespan Like These Animals

Ming lived through the Spanish Armada, the World Wars and the Civil Rights movement. Though he isn’t as famous as these events, he was historic in his own right. So who is this mysterious fellow that lived for 507 years?

Ming is an ocean quahog (aka the species of clam in your delicious clam chowder soup) that was extracted from an Icelandic seabed in 2006 for analysis by scientists. Little did they know at the time that they killed the world's oldest-known individual animal.

Globally, the average human lifespan is 70 years, according to the World Health Organization. Ming seriously outlived us -- and he’s not the only animal to do so.

Other animal individuals -- like Cookie, a resident cockatoo at the Chicago Zoological park – can live for really long times (Cookie is 80). One koi fish, Hanako, lived to be 226 years old. And if you think getting old is hard on your body, try being this Layson albatross that hatched a chick at 62 years old last year.

Continued

Long-Lived Rodents Have High Levels of Brain-Protecting Factor

ScienceDaily (May 10, 2012) — The typical naked mole rat lives 25 to 30 years, during which it shows little decline in activity, bone health, reproductive capacity and cognitive ability. What is the secret to this East African rodent's long, healthy life?

Naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber). (Credit: © belizar / Fotolia)

What an attractive fellow

Scientists from the United States and Israel found a clue. From infancy to old age, naked mole rats are blessed with large amounts of a protein essential for normal brain function.

"Naked mole rats have the highest level of a growth factor called NRG-1 in the cerebellum. Its levels are sustained throughout their life, from development through adulthood," said Yael Edrey, doctoral student at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio's Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.

Comparison across 7 species

The Barshop Institute has the largest colony of naked mole rats in the U.S. -- 2,000 rodents scampering around a network of tubes and cages in humid conditions that mimic their natural underground habitat. Edrey is the lead author of research that compared lifelong NRG-1 levels across seven species of rodents, from mice and guinea pigs to blind mole rats and Damaraland mole rats.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120510132711.htm

Why Some Animals Live Longer Than Others

ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2012) — Scientists at the University of Liverpool have developed a new method to detect proteins associated with longevity, which helps further our understanding into why some animals live longer than others.

The team looked at the genome of more than 30 mammalian species to identify proteins that evolve in connection with the longevity of a species. They found that a protein, important in responding to DNA damage, evolves and mutates in a non-random way in species that are longer-lived, suggesting that it is changing for a specific purpose. They found a similar pattern in proteins associated with metabolism, cholesterol and pathways involved in the recycling of proteins.

Findings show that if certain proteins are being selected by evolution to change in long-lived mammals like humans and elephants, then it is possible that these species have optimized pathways that repair molecular damage, compared to shorter-lived animals, such as mice.

Read on:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329112105.htm

Fruit Fly Intestine May Hold Secret to Fountain of Youth: Long-Lived Fruit Flies Offer Clues to Slowing Human Aging and Fighting Disease

ScienceDaily (Nov. 2, 2011) — One of the few reliable ways to extend an organism's lifespan, be it a fruit fly or a mouse, is to restrict calorie intake. Now, a new study in fruit flies is helping to explain why such minimal diets are linked to longevity and offering clues to the effects of aging on stem cell behavior.

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and their collaborators found that tweaking a gene known as PGC-1, which is also found in human DNA, in the intestinal stem cells of fruit flies delayed the aging of their intestine and extended their lifespan by as much as 50 percent.

"Fruit flies and humans have a lot more in common than most people think," says Leanne Jones, an associate professor in Salk's Laboratory of Genetics and a lead scientist on the project. "There is a tremendous amount of similarity between a human small intestine and the fruit fly intestine."

The findings of the study, which was a collaboration between researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California, Los Angeles, were published online in Cell Metabolism.

Scientists have long known that calorie restriction, the practice of limiting daily food intake, can extend the healthy lifespan of a range of animals. In some studies, animals on restricted diets lived more than twice as long on average as those on non-restricted diets.

While little is known about the biological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, studies have shown that the cells of calorie-restricted animals have greater numbers of energy-generating structures known as mitochondria. In mammals and flies, the PCG-1 gene regulates the number of these cellular power plants, which convert sugars and fats from food into the energy for cellular functions.

This chain of connections between the mitochondria and longevity inspired Jones and her colleague to investigate what happens when the PCG-1 gene is forced into overdrive. To do this, they used genetic engineering techniques to boost the activity of the fruit fly equivalent of the PCG-1 gene. The flies (known as Drosophila melanogaster) have a short lifespan, allowing the scientists to study aging and longevity in ways that aren't as feasible in longer-lived organisms such as mice or human.

Read on ...

Do lazy mammals live longer?

Small furry mammals partial to a daily dose of hibernation in winter are probably extending their lifespan at the same time, according to a study published Wednesday.

Experiments with Djugarian hamsters native to Siberia showed that when the tiny rodents temporarily lower their metabolism and body temperatures, a state called torpor, it stops and even reverses a natural breakdown of chromosomes linked to ageing.

Previous studies had hinted at a causal link between hibernation and longevity, but this is the first one to show the biological mechanism that may account for it.

In the laboratory, researchers led by Christopher Turbill of the Institute for Wildlife Ecology in Vienna created an artificial environment for 25 adult virgin female hamsters, offering only eight hours of light per day.

The faux-winter conditions were designed to trigger a hibernation response, according to the study, published Wednesday by the British Royal Society in the journal Biology Letters.

For 180 days, half the rodents basked in a relatively balmy 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit), while the others half lived in a chillier clime, about 9.0 C (48 F). Both groups enjoyed all-you-can-eat buffet.

In measuring the results, the researchers distinguished between shallow torpor, when body temperature dipped below 29 C (84 F), and deep torpor, when temperature dropped under 25 C (77 C), nearly 10 C (18 F) below normal.

They inserted micro-transponders under the animals' skin to keep track of the changes.

Turbill and colleagues suspected that the energy-saving, coma-like state had an impact on telomeres, which sit like tiny caps on the ends of chromosomes, protecting the precious strands of genetic code.

Telomeres and telomerase, the enzyme that control them, are a key agent in ageing and longevity.

Every time a cell divides, the telomeres get worn down a little bit. The enzyme's job is to partially rebuild them. Eventually, when the telomeres are worn beyond repair, cell death is triggered.

Australian-American cell biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work in the field, likened telomeres to the "tips of shoelaces" - lose the little plastic end, and the lace starts to fray.

For the hamsters, daily torpor, which typically lasted several hours, somehow acted to preserve these protective tips and even to restore them, the study found.

"This effect was stronger in hamsters using deep torpor, which was primarily in the cold," Turbill said in an email exchange.

Interestingly, these same hamsters also expended more energy, reflected in their higher food intake.

The findings, he added, "are probably applicable to all animals that use some form or torpor or hibernation."

That, alas, does not include humans.

"Torpor and sleep are completely different - and possibly incompatible - states," Turbill said. Humans do not significantly lower their body temperature when sleeping, nor is there a comparable slowdown in metabolic rate.

"So far, science has not come close to finding a way for humans to enter some form of hibernation."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/do-lazy-mammals-live-longer-2355971.html

Scientists: Oldest wild bird in US is new mother

US Geological Survey

In this Febuary 2011 photo provided by the US
Geological Survey, a Laysan albatross, roughly
60-years-old, named Wisdom is seen with a chick
at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge near
Hawaii. A U.S. Geological Survey scientist first
banded the seabird as she incubated an egg in
1956. She was estimated to be at least five years
old at the time. The albatross has since worn out
five bird bands.

The Associated Press

The oldest known wild bird in the U.S. is a new mother. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist spotted the Laysan albatross that's at least 60 years old a few weeks ago. It was with a chick at Midway Atoll, a remote wildlife refuge 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu.

A U.S. Geological Survey scientist first banded the seabird as she incubated an egg in 1956. She was estimated to be at least 5 years old at the time. The albatross has since worn out five bird bands.

Bruce Peterjohn, the chief of the North American Bird Banding Program, said the albatross is the oldest wild bird documented by the 90-year-old bird banding program, which is run by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Canada.

"She looks great," Peterjohn said in a news release Tuesday. "To know that she can still successfully raise young at age 60-plus, that is beyond words."

The bird, named Wisdom, has likely raised at least 30 to 35 chicks during her life, Peterjohn said.

Albatross lay just one egg a year. But it takes most of a year to incubate and raise a chick, and the seabirds sometimes take a year off from parenting after successfully raising a fledged bird.

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/08/2708763/scientists-oldest-wild-bird-in.html

Harry: a 175 year old survivor of the Beagle?

Beachcombing has been interested in longevity recently and thought that today he would highlight the remarkable case of Harry, a particularly long-lived crew member of the Beagle, the boat on which Darwin travelled to the Galapagos and on which the English scientist hatched his explosive ideas.


Now some dates to give a sense of just how well Harry did. The Beagle, it will be remembered, sailed with Darwin from 1831-1836.

Jeremy Button a Fijian hostage on the Beagle survived to 1864 (aged about 50)

John Wickham Lieutenant on the Beagle died in 1864 (aged 66) – it was Wickham who gave the name ‘Darwin’ to a harbour in northern Australia.

The Beagle’s captain, that fine old Tory Robert ‘Hot Coffee’ Fitzroy died in 1865 (aged 60) – tragically by suicide.

Conrad Martens the Beagle’s artist passed away in 1878 (aged 77), a heart attack ending his life.

Darwin himself died at 73 in 1882 of coronary thrombosis: ‘I am not the least afraid of death…’

And Robert McCormick ship surgeon (for part of the voyage) made it to 90 (1890).

But Harry trumped them all by well over a century, finally giving out in 2006, after a heart failure.

In case Beachcombing has stretched credibility to breaking point let him immediately present a picture of Harry towards the end.

For, yes, Harry was a Galapagos tortoise. Brought back on the Beagle by John Wickham (see above).

Harry lived in the grounds of Brisbane’s oldest residence, Newstead House until 1859 or 1860 when Wickham left Australia to go and live in France. At that point Harry was given to Brisbane Botanic Gardens. It was there that he was given the name Harry.

Harry seems to have been happy living into the twenty-first century and reportedly spend most of the day dozing and eating hibiscus flowers – good advice, Beachcombing would say, for us all.

The only really exciting event in his post-Beagle life was when, in the 1960s, a visiting professor pointed out that Harry was actually a female. Beachcombing is a stickler for convention here and will refuse to employ ‘Harriet’, the name that Harry was known by for the rest of her life: ‘the names we are given are the names we should keep…’

Oh and yes there has been some muttering that Harry was not really brought to Australia by the Beagle. But Galapagos tortoises did not just drop from the Australian sky in the nineteenth century – or only rarely… – and Harry’s birth date has been carefully calculated at 1830 plus or minus two years, a date that matches the Beagle’s visit almost perfectly. Indeed, there is an excellent possibility that Darwin himself picked up the immature (perhaps four or five year old) Harry as he crawled along the hot sands of one of those jewelled Pacific islands.

Beachcombing dedicates this post to Chapman and Tracy his two own tortoises who he had just brought into his study for the winter. If last year is anything to go by then nothing but misery awaits them…

http://beachcombing.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/harry-a-175-year-old-survivor-of-the-beagle/