# Does longer lifespan = smarter animals?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 23, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431 "2005-11-23T16:13:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/1 "2005-11-23T16:13:35Z")
In other words (and feel free to correct me), let’s say there’s a species of ape that only lives 10 years, for whatever reason. Another lives 20. Will the 20-years have a more complex brain to deal with all of the new info? And does that mean that if certain animals that are already pretty bright, like octopuses, lived longer that they would be smarter?
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### Author:  [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/2 "2005-11-23T16:48:45Z")
One problem with your theory: King’s Holly (_Lomatia tasmanica_) has been found that is 43,000 years old.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/3 "2005-11-23T16:50:07Z")
There doesn’t seem to be a direct correlation. How intelligent are the long-lived Galapagos Tortoises?
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### Author:  [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/4 "2005-11-23T17:32:38Z")
it is true there is a correlation between brain size and body size, and a lower one between brain size and intelligence, and another correlation between life span and body size (big bodies need more time to grow) so yes there is going to some relationship between intelligence and lifespan, though with many exceptions
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/5 "2005-11-23T20:57:10Z")
> [@scm1001](#):
>
> it is true there is a correlation between brain size and body size
Is there really, and can you provide a reference? If the correlation exists it must be extraordinarily week. A clam, a squid, a gibbon and a shark can all have approximately the same body size, yet they have nothing like comparable brain sizes.
> [@](#):
>
> and a lower one between brain size and intelligence
Once again, can we have a reference for this claim. I would have thought exactly the opposite would be true. Intuitively I would say that the intelligence of an animal would be far better correlated to brian size than body size is. There are numerous animals with gram sized brains in tonne sized bodies, but I can’t think of any with half kg brains and no intelligence.
> [@](#):
>
> and another correlation between life span and body size (big bodies need more time to grow)
Once again, I’d have to see some evidence to believe any such correlation exists, and I’d be astounded if it was particularly strong. Cats live longer than wolves, parrots live longer than cats, people live longer than gorillas, sharks live longer than whales. Snakes live longer than mice and so forth.
> [@](#):
>
> so yes there is going to some relationship between intelligence and lifespan
Can we see the evidence please?
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### Author:  [@Bill\_The\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_The_Cat)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/6 "2005-11-23T21:18:55Z")
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some sort of correlation, but in the other direction: smarter animals live longer.
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### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/7 "2005-11-23T21:43:52Z")
True, but if your lifespan is only gonna be 10 years, it doesn’t matter how smart you are-you won’t get to 12, so why be too smart?
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/8 "2005-11-23T21:55:53Z")
[Top 5 longest lived naimals](http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/ns/article/0,17585,356356,00.html)
> [@](#):
>
> 1. Giant tortoise: up to 200 years
> 2. Human: up to 122
> 3. Sturgeon (a type of fish): up to 100
> 4. Blue whale and golden eagle: up to 80
> 5. African elephant: up to 77
[Animal (General) Maximum Lifespan\*](http://www.koolpages.com/hokuspokus/lifespans.html)
(in years)
Mammals
> [@](#):
>
> Bat 5-34 (varies by species)
> Bear 31
> Cat 21
> Chimpanzee 37
> Dog 34
> Elephant 57
> Horse 62
> Human, Neanderthal 20
> Human, Neolithic 20
> Human, Classical Greece 28
> Human, Classical Rome 28
> Human, Medieval England 33\*\*
> Human, end of 18th Century 37
> Human, early 20th Century 50
> Human, circa 1940 65
> Human, current 77-79 (varies by region)
> Lion 29
> Mouse 3
> Ox 30
> Birds
> Bluejay 4
> Canary 24
> Macaw 64
> Nightingale 3.8
> Pigeon 69
> Reptiles
> Alligator 56
> Box turtle 123
> Giant tortoise 177
> Amphibians
> Salamanders 3-25
> Fish
> Eel 6
> Goldfish 25
> Sturgeon 50
> Insects
> Ant 15
> Fruit fly 0.1 (30-40 days)
> Spiders
> Bird spider 15
> House spider 0.01 (3-4 days)
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/9 "2005-11-23T22:11:58Z")
> [@bordelond](#):
>
> There doesn’t seem to be a direct correlation. How intelligent are the long-lived Galapagos Tortoises?
And conversely, members of family _Octopoda_, which are highly regarded for their problem solving and communication skills, generally live only 3-5 years, with some lasting only a few months.
Brain mass to total body weight is often used as the yardstick, but it really only directly applies within phylums: one can make a gereral assertion on that basis with regard to mammals, for instance, but that doesn’t necessarily hold with regard to insects, fish, or birds. Another measure is the relative complexity of the nervous system, but again, this is something of a relative metric; some phyla, class, or orders will have a hyperdeveloped portion of the nervous system but aren’t particularly brilliant overall.
Remember, in prehistoric nature the human lifespan is only 30-40 years. By that measure, there are many animals that would routinely outlive us.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/10 "2005-11-23T22:14:36Z")
Octopii are one of the ocean’s smarter creatures, but they have a life span of around two years for most species.
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/11 "2005-11-23T22:15:37Z")
And they’re smart enough not to repeat the previous poster 🙂
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### Author:  [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/12 "2005-11-23T22:25:31Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> There are numerous animals with gram sized brains in tonne sized bodies, but I can’t think of any with half kg brains and no intelligence.
You don’t read some of the letters that get sent to the campus newspaper at my university. :rolleyes:
> [@](#):
>
> Snakes live longer than mice and so forth.
I always figured this was because the snakes were eating the mice. 😃
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### Author:  [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/13 "2005-11-23T23:00:23Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> Is there really, and can you provide a reference? If the correlation exists it must be extraordinarily week. A clam, a squid, a gibbon and a shark can all have approximately the same body size, yet they have nothing like comparable brain sizes.
> Once again, can we have a reference for this claim. I would have thought exactly the opposite would be true. Intuitively I would say that the intelligence of an animal would be far better correlated to brian size than body size is. There are numerous animals with gram sized brains in tonne sized bodies, but I can’t think of any with half kg brains and no intelligence.
>
> Once again, I’d have to see some evidence to believe any such correlation exists, and I’d be astounded if it was particularly strong. Cats live longer than wolves, parrots live longer than cats, people live longer than gorillas, sharks live longer than whales. Snakes live longer than mice and so forth.
>
> Can we see the evidence please?
must I do all the work round here? [/sigh]
correlation animal size with longevity
[http://www.senescence.info/comparative.html](http://www.senescence.info/comparative.html)
bird size with longevity [http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Condor/files/issues/v078n01/p0091-p0094.pdf](http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Condor/files/issues/v078n01/p0091-p0094.pdf)
brain size and body size
AS we move from small to large animals, from mice to elephants or small lizards to Komodo dragons, brain size increases, BUT not so fast as body size. IN OTHER WORDS, bodies grow faster than brains, AND large animals have low ratios of brain weight to body weight. IN FACT, brains grow only about two-thirds as fast as bodies." Stephen Jay Gould, “Were Dinosaurs Dumb?”
graph halfway down here [Allometry](http://weber.ucsd.edu/~jmoore/courses/allometry/allometry.html)
The correlation between brain size and intelligence is tricky in between species (is a octopus more intellignet than a mouse?). However the general trend is clear (a monkey is more intelligent than a mouse which is more intelligent than a louse)
However within species there may be some correlation e.g. [http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/DASL/Stories/BrainSizeandIntelligence.html](http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/DASL/Stories/BrainSizeandIntelligence.html) in humans
My point is not that there is a strong correlation between longevity and intelligence, but that one can correlate longevity to size and then to brain size.
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### Author:  [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/14 "2005-11-23T23:10:02Z")
another discusion of brain size vs intelligence with lots more facts but no startling conclusions [http://www.parmly.luc.edu/brain/intel.pdf](http://www.parmly.luc.edu/brain/intel.pdf)
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### Author:  [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/15 "2005-11-23T23:30:39Z")
Brain size has nothing to do with intelligence. This much has been proven. Brain to body size does not prove intelligence either, and any attempt to do so is shaky at best.
Also, lifetime is proportional to heartrate, heart rate is proportional to mass.
All mammals have approximately the same number of heartbeats per lifetime. Hence, little kitty with the fater heart rate dying quicker.
This is allometry, which I wish I could find an easy walkthrough explanation of why it is. But it damn near has nothing to do with intelligence.
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### Author:  [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/16 "2005-11-23T23:32:03Z")
in fact lets jump right from brain size to longevity in just one correlation
in primates [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=45611](http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=45611)
and in mammals 2. Sacher, G. A. (1959) in Ciba Foundation Colloquia on Ageing, eds. Wolstenhome, G. E. W. & O’Connor, M. (Churchill, London), pp. 115-133.
from [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/15/10221](http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/15/10221)
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### Author:  [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/17 "2005-11-23T23:38:15Z")
> [@Go You Big Red Fire Engine](#):
>
> Brain size has nothing to do with intelligence. This much has been proven. Brain to body size does not prove intelligence either, and any attempt to do so is shaky at best…
sorry? It is clearly correlated in a gross way (human, mouse louse), and if you read my cites above has even been correlated in several studies in humans. Why does one bother?
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### Author:  [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/18 "2005-11-23T23:55:08Z")
> [@scm1001](#):
>
> sorry? It is clearly correlated in a gross way (human, mouse louse), and if you read my cites above has even been correlated in several studies in humans. Why does one bother?
They correlate brain size and lifespan, bigger brain != intelligence. In fact, one of your cites disprove your arguments.
And as for human cites, that’s not what the OP is looking for.
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### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/19 "2005-11-24T00:10:12Z")
> [@Love Rhombus](#):
>
> In other words (and feel free to correct me), let’s say there’s a species of ape that only lives 10 years, for whatever reason. Another lives 20. Will the 20-years have a more complex brain to deal with all of the new info? And does that mean that if certain animals that are already pretty bright, like octopuses, lived longer that they would be smarter?
Long life doesn’t necessarily correlate with a lot of new experiences. In a stable ecology the animal’s experience can be quite repetitive.
Galapagos turtles live a long, long time and I don’t know that they are all that brainy.
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### Author:  [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-longer-lifespan-smarter-animals/332431/20 "2005-11-24T14:09:36Z")
> [@Go You Big Red Fire Engine](#):
>
> They correlate brain size and lifespan, bigger brain != intelligence. In fact, one of your cites disprove your arguments.
> And as for human cites, that’s not what the OP is looking for.
Which cite and where in it? you also mention ealrlier that
“Brain size has nothing to do with intelligence. This much has been proven” but provide no cites or evidence. At least I spent some time finding some support for my position.
It is clear that brain size has some relationship to intelligence else a louse would be as intelligent as us, no? . The complexity of the brain structure is another factor.
As has been mentioned it is almost impossible to compare two different animal species for intelligence so the OP is probably unanswerable within semibroad divisions (e.g. dog, pig dolphin). However for tighter divisions (e.g. primates) there is a clear correlation as intelligence can be measured to some degree and has been. Also for very broad land based correlations it probably also holds (e.g. louse, mouse, rabbit, monkey, man).
People it is no use picking on the odd example (e.g turtles) and saying look it disproves the hypothesis! (of course there are always exceptions and outlyers) . What is needed is large scale sampling over a wide number of animals as has been done in several of my cites.
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