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lurq_king t1_ixsq3sc wrote

Wait, hold on.

With the number of youngster that fall to prey, this average has to be skewed.

So how old does an adult get, assuming they survive the numerous murder gauntlets?

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Infinity_Null t1_ixsxsj7 wrote

Average lifespan is calculated differently for non-humans. Humans count actual average amount of time lived including infant mortality, while animals are typically only calculated from after a certain amount of time has passed (sometimes only counting adults).

Otherwise you would get super skewed results for animals like octopodes (other plurals include octopuses or octopi) which have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of babies at once, of which some lucky species have a survival rate of 1% before adulthood. This would make the average lifespan of an octopus anywhere from a couple days to a few hours.

It is strange and somewhat inconsistent, and this causes the numbers to be Skewed for animals like zebras. But I get why they want to avoid numbers that would be utterly useless for some species.

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canalrhymeswithanal t1_ixsyenr wrote

There's this one asshole sea turtle who just won't die that ruins the averages for all the hatchlings that never touch water.

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mysterious_jedi t1_ixss9xs wrote

It could be median rather than mean.

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cain071546 t1_ixu32fh wrote

Definitely, Horses/Zebras/Donkeys/Mules can live up to 40+ years when they don't get eaten.

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