The Better Baseline of the Bowhead Whale

By jjacquet on June 17, 2007.

Today the Loom's Carl Zimmer wrote for the NYTimes: Take It Slow, Don't Have Many Kids and Enjoy Cold Water. Zimmer examines what influences the lifespans of animals. Lifespan is ultimately the largest influence on the phenomenon of shifting baselines: humans simply do not live long enough to remember how much they have changed things. Bowheads or the Rockeye rockfish have a more informed opinion of the past, given that each can live more than 200 years.

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Thanks for sharing this; I didn't know that Bowheads can live that long.

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