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Steven N. Austad
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Methuselah's Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us about Living Longer, Healthier Lives Hardcover – August 16, 2022

by Steven N. Austad (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 22 ratings
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Stories of long-lived animal species—from thousand-year-old tubeworms to 400-year-old sharks—and what they might teach us about human health and longevity.

Opossums in the wild don’t make it to the age of three; our pet cats can live for a decade and a half; cicadas live for seventeen years (spending most of them underground). Whales, however, can live for two centuries and tubeworms for several millennia. Meanwhile, human life expectancy tops out around the mid-eighties, with some outliers living past 100 or even 110. Is there anything humans can learn from the exceptional longevity of some animals in the wild? In Methusaleh’s Zoo, Steven Austad tells the stories of some extraordinary animals, considering why, for example, animal species that fly live longer than earthbound species and why animals found in the ocean live longest of all.

Austad—the leading authority on longevity in animals—argues that the best way we will learn from these long-lived animals is by studying them in the wild. Accordingly, he proceeds habitat by habitat, examining animals that spend most of their lives in the air, comparing insects, birds, and bats; animals that live on, and under, the ground—from mole rats to elephants; and animals that live in the sea, including quahogs, carp, and dolphins.

Humans have dramatically increased their lifespan with only a limited increase in healthspan; we’re more and more prone to diseases as we grow older. By contrast, these species have successfully avoided both environmental hazards and the depredations of aging. Can we be more like them?
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The MIT Press
  4. Publication date
    August 16, 2022
  5. Dimensions
    6.31 x 1.02 x 9.31 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0262047098
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0262047098
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"For aspiring scientists and health care advocates."
— Library Journal

“It was refreshing to read Methuselah’s Zoo, the latest book from biologist Steven Austad, who expresses with clarity what we know and what we don’t know about aging.”
—Science

“I recommend Methuselah’s Zoo. . . a smartly written book . . . an entertaining tour of the whole animal kingdom in all its mad variety. I had no idea I would so enjoy reading about the naked mole rat, or indeed the “human fish”, a type of salamander that lurks in Balkan caves . . . Austad knows more about his subject than anyone on the planet.”
—The Telegraph

Review

“Methuselah’s Zoo is not only fun to read—it is the best book written on the lives and lifespans of our long-lived relatives, teachers of what’s possible for our own species and for our individual lives.”
—David Sinclair, Professor, Harvard Medical School, author of New York Times and international bestseller, Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To
 
 “Steven Austad is a world class scientist who also has a rare gift for storytelling. His observations about the incredible range of longevity across species deeply informs human aging. Austad will draw you in with eloquent prose and leave you with compelling insights about aging.” 
—Laura L. Carstensen, Professor of Psychology and Founding Director, Stanford Center on Longevity
 
“A thrilling, hilarious and uplifting adventure into the astounding life of animals, debunking aging myths and revealing how the study of extraordinary animals can enable us to age more slowly. Brilliantly insightful and wonderfully hopeful!”
—Emma Teeling, Professor of Zoology, University College Dublin

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press (August 16, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262047098
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262047098
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.31 x 1.02 x 9.31 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 22 ratings

About the author

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Steven N. Austad

Steven N. Austad

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Steven N. Austad holds the Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is Senior Scientific Director of the New York-based American Federation for Aging Research. He is an elected fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Austad maintains a keen interest in communicating science to the lay public. In that capacity has served on the Science Advisory Board of National Public Radio and has written more than 200 popular science articles and essays for print and electronic media, and published 7 books. In his earlier life, Dr. Austad, with a degree in English literature, trained lions for the Hollywood movie industry, was a newspaper reporter, drove a taxi cab in New York City, and hustled pool nation-wide. With a PhD in evolutionary ecology, he has done field research in multiple parts of the United States, Venezuela, England, Kenya, Micronesia, and Papua New Guinea, experiences he brings to his writing.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
22 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Book Lover Bob
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and fun to read.
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2023
Verified Purchase
Informative and fun to read.
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Dan
5.0 out of 5 stars Facinating book!
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2024
As someone who loves both biology and longevity, this was a fantastic and interesting read! I would highly suggest it to anyone interested in either.
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Gary Ruvkun
5.0 out of 5 stars The Natural History of Longevity from albatross to termites
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2022
Steve Austad is the Darwin of the field of aging, using animal diversity in life cycles and lifespans to reveal the evolutionary plasticity possible in longevity. Austad presents a few dozen amazing stories of dramatically increased longevity on particular twigs of the Tree of Life. The life cycles and ecological niches of these social insects or bats or clams is explained succinctly, so that the reader gets an instant education in natural history. He then analyzes how differences in predation or metabolism or social structure of the species may intersect these longevity changes. Because there are so many twigs with exceptional longevity, Austad argues that there must be only a few genetic changes that can rather dramatically increase lifespan in these branches. Woven into the writing are dozens of stories about the field biology and field biologists, with the added theatricality that a field like aging that attracts public attention, also attracts hucksters and practitioners of hyperbole whose tricks are dissected in detail by Austad. Quite a few of those stories were laugh out loud funny. This is not dry scientific exposition. Austad is a first class writer! And I must stress that Austad is a rare bird in the aging field in another sense as well: he just reports the observations and their possible explanations, but does not exaggerate into immortal humans. And unlike nearly every other book ever written about aging, caloric restriction is not a focus of the book or these animal life cycles. A century of caloric restriction eructations may finally cease when the keys to the longevity of these birds and insects and bivalves is figured out. A superb read.
3 people found this helpful
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Nir Barzilai
5.0 out of 5 stars The most fun you have with science and great insight and help on targeting aging
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2022
The Old Testament’s obsession with humans’ longevity is evident, where numerous names are always linked to their age of death. Although in Genesis, in the story of Noah’s Ark (he was the actual one with the zoo), God proclaims that the human life span is 120 years (after Methuselah lived to be 969). Noah ignored that age and lived in 960, Abraham 175, Sara 127, etc. So longevity seemed the singular most important fact (after the name) as our humanity was inserted into the text. Is longevity with in our human potential? If you want to understand the evolution of aging and exceptional longevity, you should read this book which is much more fun than the bible. It reads like fiction because so many stories on animal lifespan and how they were determined are hilarious (and so well written). Steve Austad is an evolutionary biologist who spends much of his career in the field, really fields all over the world. He is also an expert on the Biology of Aging and is the Chief Scientific Director of AFAR. Reading this book, you will understand that all creatures age similarly with problems with their- hair, skin, skeletal, and diseases. This commonality in aging is an opportunity that does not exist for specific diseases. Going around the world and its species, you also understand why the lifespan of exceptional animals can be directly related to our effort to target aging and increase our healthspan (and lifespan). It was the most fun I ever had for a non-fictional book.
3 people found this helpful
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David Stipp
5.0 out of 5 stars As fun as it is fascinating
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2022
Centenarians get a lot of attention because everyone wants to know their longevity secrets. But there’s strangely little out there about extraordinarily long-lived wild animals, whose sources of longevity are just as interesting, and potentially as important, as those of long-lived humans. That makes Methuselah’s Zoo an instant rare book. Who wouldn’t want to know, for instance, what enables some ant queens to live nearly 30 years, or how mouse-sized bats manage to live 10 times longer than mice (in one recorded case for over 40 years)? Steve Austad has a sweeping command of the subject, his lucid prose is highly readable, and his anecdotes are a hoot. In the interest of science, for instance, he watched the entire set of the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies in an attempt to check out the reported super longevity of Cheeta, the movies’ star chimp. It doesn’t hurt that besides being a distinguished scientist, he’s had lots of wild animal adventures—such as getting bitten by a vampire bat, training lions for living, and having his foot stepped on by an elephant for a TV stunt on an episode of the Bionic Woman.
One person found this helpful
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AndreaRomance
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2022
This book contains interesting anecdotes about animals that live longer-than-usual lives. If you like discovering unusual facts about animals, you'll enjoy this book.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
2 people found this helpful
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Book-Movie-Music Lover
1.0 out of 5 stars No Useful Information at All
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2023
The book is basically a biology book about some animals, birds, and fish that are long-lived. If that kind of stuff floats your boat, then this book is for you.
However, the subtitle is: "What Nature Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Healthier Lives."
Unfortunately, there is not even one sentence on that topic in the book. I read the book cover to cover, hoping as I got to each page that there would be at least some little tidbit of functional, useful "takeaways." None.
I read all the way up to the final paragraph, hoping for at least one short final paragraph saying, "Based on what we know about long-lived animals, here are some things that we can do as humans to extend our lives." Nothing.
About all he says repeatedly throughout the book is that, "We need to spend money to research this stuff and get some answers."
So I really don't see what the purpose of writing the book was. This is a book for biology students. not lay readers.
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Top reviews from other countries

Wendy Wren
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in Canada on December 29, 2023
Verified Purchase
Husband enjoyed his birthday book. Ordered it after hearing the author being interviewed on CBC radio.
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