Bowhead whales may live more than 200 years

The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), a year-round resident of Arctic waters, is the longest-lived mammal on Earth — and possibly the longest-lived of any animal with a backbone. NOAA states the species may live 200-plus years.

The first clues came from old stone and ivory harpoon tips found embedded in living whales, weapons that had gone out of use more than a century earlier. Scientists later confirmed the extreme ages using a chemical clock: proteins in the eye lens form before birth and never get replaced, so the slow conversion of one form of aspartic acid into another acts like tree rings.

Applying that method to dozens of whales, researchers estimated one bull bowhead was about 211 years old at death — alive when Thomas Jefferson was president.

Genes that repair damaged DNA may help explain how bowheads dodge the cancers and decay that limit most mammals.