Is it true that the crocodiles do not age? - Senescence in Crocs
Well, reading the title of this post might make one wonder if there is some immortality present in crocodiles or what... But we might have come across news of crocodiles death as well right? So are they really immortal??
To answer it in short, its a NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...
Quite a big no to be precise, crocodiles and gators are mortal too however the reason for their deaths commonly lies on natural disaster, poaching [Yes by us, the human species] and other external factors that can come up.
Crocodiles are considered to be very remarkable species among the beings present today. They can be even considered to be living fossils for the time they have been around here on earth [around 80-85 million years]. Also the amount of catastrophic events they have experienced and still somehow managed to avoid extinction. Some even say that crocodile ancestors have even existed during the Jurassic era [ Yes, there was an Jurassic era as well not just the movie ] as well which dates back to some ~200 million years ago.
Why there is so much of a hulahoo around the crocodiles for their anti-aging behavior is because they exhibit a behavior of "Negligible Senescence". And before one asks what is senescence, lets dive straight to it.
Senescence can be loosely used with aging although one can say that senescence contributes to aging, wherein the cell growth stops i.e. there is halt in the cell division activity which occurs throughout the life cycle of a being. A process of biological aging [Yes, there are different types of aging like biological, psychological and many more] which results in gradual decrease of efficiency of a being.
This behavior is very negligible in crocodiles. Also crocodiles do not grow indefinitely, once they reach an adult age their growth atleast in terms of size slows down considerably. There is a reason why we do not see 1000 ft crocodiles.
And as we spoke about it before , the presence of crocodiles or crocodile like species were said to be around the time when there were dinosaurs. Why they are not extinct yet can may be attributed to maybe their this ability to survive for a long time without food. Also for being lucky to be probably not being around where the asteroid hit [atleast for some species]
Also crocs do feel the effect of old age, their teeths[Yes, we know teeth is plural tooth is singular and there is no word as teeths] fall, cataract happens [yes same way as we humans], they lose strength within and other to name a few effects. And as they grow in size their need for food also would increase proportionately right? So basically either they feel prey to nature/humans or either become weak that they could not survive.
So yes, the living fossil as it is sometimes called also have their fate written down to have a death.
Now we are not denying the fact, there are instances where the crocodiles are literally 9 feet!!! Some live around 120 years ~ 140 yrs. There was a crocodile known as Mr Freshie, a freshwater crocodile from Australia who lived for around 140 yrs. Also crocodiles are not just the species who exhibit such behavior of negligible senescence.
Whales or specifically Artic Bowhead whales are said to have a life span of ~200 years, Sharks with around same time lines. Lobsters, Octopus, Jellyfish [These are another so called immortal beings], Tortoises and other creatures to name a few.
Just to stimulate your curious mind a bit, Jellyfish can be actually called as immortal beings. This creature can seemingly escape death forever. Although not provable yet, it technically seems to be possible because Jellyfish or Turritopsis Dohrnii can hit a reset button and can go back to the start of its life-cycle phase and regenerate again.
Maybe we can explore this more some other time.. So as of now crocodiles being immortal NO, Jelly fish, Lobsters MAYBE but that's for next time.... Until then.. remember the curious mind talks!
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