The average lifespan of a human is around 60-90 years. As
modern medicine gets better and better, we live even longer. The oldest person
alive in “recent” times died at the age of around 120 years old. But that’s
nothing compared to heroes of the Bible. Adam, the first man, lived around 930
years. Seth, Adam's third son, lived about 912 years. Noah lived about 950 years and
Enoch lived on earth until he reached 365 years of age when God took him away.
But the person who’s lived the longest, by no coincidence also has an extremely
long name – Methuselah! Methuselah lived to be 960 years old until death. If he
had lived another 30 years, he would have been 1,000 years old! But these
long-lived people were of Bible times. Animals, even ones living today have
some pretty long lifespans as well. Elephants live to be about 80+. Tortoises
can live around 200 to perhaps around 250 years old. Many whales can live into
their 400’s. The recently cloned sauropods – or long-necked dinosaurs – can
live to be 200 years old or more. Recently, a jellyfish by the name of Jello
has come to stay at Animal Adventures
Studios (the part of Animal
Adventures Inc. (AAI.) that does
TV broadcasting and movies). He seems like a pretty old guy, so after asking if
he’d like to be an interviewee, I asked him how old he is. Jello is quoted for
saying, “I am 6,000 years old and counting.” Whoa! Now a lot of people reading
that response must be thinking, “this guy needs to go in the Lunacy Aquarium!”
At first I thought this was a little weird too so I asked him if he was
kidding. “I do not kid,” says Jello. “Many people think I’m hoodwinking them
when I tell them my age, but I’m not. You see, I’m from a species of jellyfish
called Turritopsis nutricula, or the Giant Immortal Jellyfish. God created us as an amazing breed of jellyfish. See, most
jellyfish have a fixed lifespan, but as my species name suggests, we don’t!
Whenever we start aging and getting physically old, we have an amazing ability –
we just revert back to the polyp or baby jellyfish stage. Then we grow up and
get older until we revert again! Isn’t it amazing? The only way we get killed
is by predators or illness. But most of us are really, really small, so many of us get eaten easily. Only a few ‘lucky’,
or rather, ‘providential’ ones get to such a large size as I am.” I, as the
reporter, was shocked that a jellyfish could live so-o-o-o long. I was still
curious if the jellyfish was telling a tall tale, but I did my research and
found otherwise. In fact, here is the webpage I
looked at to see if the jellyfish was telling the truth. And sure enough, there
really is a species called the
Immortal Jellyfish. Who knew? God actually did create animals with the ability
to keep on living. I then asked Jello if other animals have been given this
gift. “Well, as you know not many animals can keep on living, but this gift
might be shared with another invertebrate that is often served boiled red on a
large platter at Red Lobster restaurant.
Yes, that’s right, the lobster might also have the ability to keep on living,
scientists aren’t yet sure. I guess they might be able to know the answer if
they didn’t kill them for food so much!” I then decided to visit AAI.’s leading geneticist, Dr. Steve
Stevenson to see what he thinks about this. This was his response: “Not many
people know about the abilities of the Immortal Jellyfish. But perhaps these
animals will be able to help the human race. You see, if we study the jellyfish
to see how they are able to live so long, maybe we will be able to reveal how
we humans can do the same. Who knows? These jellyfish could help us a lot!” Who
knew a jellyfish could be so fascinating? I guess tales of animals with long
lives really are telling the truth and not such a “long-lived tall tale” after
all!
Written by: Mr. Smiley
Photographer: Daniel P. Smithwater
Edited by: Christian Ryan
Weekly Cartoons
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