Longevity Stats 

    My maternal grandfather lived to 103 and my father lived to 98. Both were healthy throughout their lives. I’m hoping I’ve inherited their durable genes, even though I’ve not lived as common-sensibly as they did.

    The oldest known human was Jeanne Louise Calmet, who made it to 122 with only nineteenth- and early twentieth-century medical care available (1875-1997).

    Other earth’s fauna live lives of widely varying longevity. That last lobster you savored might have been 100, but that’s nothing compared with an Ocean quahog clam, which could be over 500 years old before it’s served up on your plate. If you prefer Mahi-mahi (Common dolphinfish), it cannot have lived more than 4 years when caught and grilled. Pink salmon live only 3 years, while a rougheye rockfish can live 205 years.

    The shortest-lived vertebrate on our planet is the Pygmy goby fish, at eight weeks. Waaaay over at the other end of the longevity spectrum is the Immortal jellyfish, which can reverse its life cycle back to a polyp over and over. The life of a single Hexactinellid sponge can date back an incredible 15,000 years, to a time when the earliest people arrived in North America.

    Here’s a selection of other creatures’ life spans:

          House mouse 4 yrs

          Mountain cottontail rabbit 7.4 yrs

          Red squirrel 9.8 yrs

          Buff-bellied hummingbird 11 yrs

          Guinea pig 12 yrs

          Common quail and Giant armadillo 15 yrs

          Domestic cattle, American crow, and Giant manta ray 20 yrs

          Red fox and Cheetah 21 yrs

          Tiger and Blue jay 26 yrs

          Domestic dog and King penguin 27 yrs

          Domestic cat 30 yrs

          Panda 37 yrs

          Gray heron 38 yrs

          Giraffe and Whooping crane 40 yrs

          Great white shark 50 yrs

          Bottlenose dolphin 52 yrs

          Gorilla 60 yrs

          Chimpanzee 68 yrs

          American alligator 77 yrs

          Asian elephant 80 yrs

          Killer whale 90 yrs

          Blue whale 110 yrs

          Eastern box turtle 138 yrs

          Aldabra tortoise 175 yrs

          Bowhead whale 211 yrs

          Greenland shark 392 yrs

    All the creatures on the above list survive with no medical help whatsoever. No procedures, therapies, dieting, yoga, psychological counselling, gym memberships, supplements, or pills, yet the last five of them far outlive any of us. But, on the other hand or paw or flipper, none of them consume double bacon cheeseburgers or fries or Twinkies or loaded pizzas or alcohol or nicotine or soft drinks. And they get plenty of daily exercise.

    Maybe we’ve a few lessons to learn from them.

Phil

Source: National Geographic

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Storm Visitor

     You’re not supposed to begin an account with a worn-out weather cliché, but it was a dark and stormy night some years back as we fought our way south through rough seas well off notorious ship-killing Cape Hatteras. The boat’s owner, Pete, had hired me and another licensed captain, John, to help him move his immaculate 62-foot sailing yacht from Newport to Florida for the winter. We had to travel offshore and take turns standing watches because the 87-foot-tall mast wouldn’t make it under fixed bridges along the protected Intracoastal Waterway. During this night, we heard the owner of a catamaran that was taking on water radio a Mayday to the Coast Guard, but we never learned that boat’s fate.

     Our own situation was deteriorating, and we were all awake trying to sort it out. The bow hatch had sprung a leak, the storm wind had ripped a seam loose on the cockpit overhead canvas dodger, and waves had broken one of the two heavy steel davits suspending the dinghy crossways aft of the stern. We rigged a stout line from a heavy electric sail winch to brace the davit somewhat.

     In the gray pre-dawn light, a small brown songbird fluttered aboard and settled on a cockpit cushion. The wind must have blown it out to sea, and it had obviously exhausted itself trying to fly back to land. By then, we were somewhat worn down ourselves. We fed it some bread and water and soon it perked up enough to fly below and explore the yacht’s layout. Its ordeal had evidently eclipsed any fear of us, and at one point it perched atop John’s ball cap visor for a time, looking ahead through the windshield into the mist.

     South of the Cape, as we drew closer to Beaufort inlet, heading for the town docks where we could make repairs, the wind abated, and sunlight was lancing through the scudding clouds.

     Our small brown visitor spotted the dunes and darted away, leaving us with a nice uplifting memory.

Phil

Check out the latest suspense novel, Dawn Light, starring yacht delivery captain Dent Stedman. It’s on Amazon in your choice of print or Kindle.

 

 

A Cat’s Interactive Channel

     Naomi and I had never seen our 14-year-old cat, McKenzie, pay the slightest attention to TV, until one recent day when we were watching and listening to various songbirds on YouTube. He loped into the room and not only became riveted by the screen, but also began interacting with it. Even weirder, some of the featured birds seemed to be interacting with him.

     So, it wasn’t that he never could comprehend the TV all those years.

     Evidently, he’d simply scorned our choices of programming.

     I’ll let you know if he figures out how to use the remote now.

     Please share this post with the cats in your world.

McKenzie and a bold jay stare each other down.

Check out Phil’s half-dozen acclaimed suspense novels on Amazon in your choice of print or Kindle. Money back if you don’t love them.