Oh, pretty old thing.

April 15, 2011 9:25 PM

Not just the young: Photographer Isa Leshko shows us elderly animals (and a few more on her own site).
posted by nobody (25 comments total)

Apparently dogs just get cuter as they age, and arabian horses have great cheekbones and age like Hellen Mirren.
posted by you're a kitty! at 9:35 PM on April 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

These are so nice.
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:29 PM on April 15, 2011

Cool! Love the idea. I do kind of wish they were shot in color, just because photos like this have an information component aside from the art value.
posted by threeants at 10:44 PM on April 15, 2011

Wow, humans are wrinkly.
posted by polymodus at 11:00 PM on April 15, 2011

We got no fur/feathers to protect against sun damage.
posted by hermitosis at 11:22 PM on April 15, 2011

Surely it is no mistake that this is posted the same day as The Onion posts its Elderly Wildlife Issue.

Old animals, it seems, are in the air.

Oh, and Blue looks like she would fuck you up just to prove she still could. That dog is awesome.
posted by Myca at 11:22 PM on April 15, 2011

Why does the rooster look like Baron Vladimir Harkonnen?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:26 PM on April 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow, these are gorgeous.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:51 PM on April 15, 2011

It's a sad consequence of Klieber's Law that small animals live their lives faster. I cried for Marino, the bronze turkey, limping along in his twilight years at the age of five. "Marino, poor Marino, you are far too young to die!" Then I adjusted for mass and metabolism rate, and my god! Marino is one old-ass turkey.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:56 PM on April 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

The moggy looks in good nick for 19 years old.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:40 AM on April 16, 2011

This is a great idea for a photo series, and the shots are lovely, but I want more, and more types of animals. Give me elderly elephants, and especially elderly great apes.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:45 AM on April 16, 2011

They're all domesticated animals, in boring, mostly centered poses, in safe environments, heavily photoshopped - including a sepia tone.


F'n make an interesting shot and don't show images of cutesy things. These are photos for a calendar. The cheese factor of all this is off the charts.

Sorry to rant.
posted by alex_skazat at 12:56 AM on April 16, 2011

Hmm, now why would it be difficult to photograph an elderly wild animal?
posted by drdanger at 2:37 AM on April 16, 2011 [6 favorites]

twoleftfeet: Then I adjusted for mass and metabolism rate, and my god! Marino is one old-ass turkey.

A question I've always wondered about is what, if anything, biological scaling laws mean when considering the subjective experience of time. (I obviously haven't wondered about it with enough urgency to either find an answer or check whether someone else has already done so.)

As far as I can tell, I measure subjective time in thoughts rather than heartbeats. How does the perception of time scale with body mass? As a naive person who knows nothing about biology and a little bit about computers, I'm tempted to suggest it scales as the number of "clock-cycles", roughly determined by brain-crossing time for a signal at the speed of neural communication. If that's the case, then you'd expect subjective time to be a shallower function of mass than metabolic rate. (Roughly number-of-thoughts ~ linear-size ~ m^(1/3) compared to metabolic-rate ~ surface-area ~ m^(2/3).)

Is that actually true? Do turkeys experience less life, in a subjective sense, than humans? Perhaps the viable, quantitative version of that question is, how does an animal's response-time to a stimulus scale with metabolic rate? Do Turkey's perceive fewer events than us in their lifetime? I don't know the answer, but it seems like an easy enough measurement to make.
posted by eotvos at 4:05 AM on April 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I want to kiss them, and knit festive vests for them, and kiss them some more. I guess this is how I'm dealing with death, these days.
posted by biddeford at 4:09 AM on April 16, 2011

twoleftfeet: "It's a sad consequence of Klieber's Law that small animals live their lives faster. I cried for Marino, the bronze turkey, limping along in his twilight years at the age of five. "Marino, poor Marino, you are far too young to die!" Then I adjusted for mass and metabolism rate, and my god! Marino is one old-ass turkey."

Then why does a Quaker parrot live up to 25 years?

29 cm long on average, with a 48 cm wingspan, and weighs 100 g. The lifespan of Monk Parakeets has been given as 15–20 years[7] or as much as 25–30 years;[8] From here.

Not to argue just curious.
posted by Splunge at 4:47 AM on April 16, 2011

It's a trend, not an absolute rule. Like any trend, there are exceptions. Many small-bodied primates live much longer than expected.

One of the saddest things I've ever seen was an old male saddleback tamarin. Unfortunately, I can't find the picture I took of him before he disappeared. The last time I saw him, he was on the raised walkway outside my lab, eating a slice of banana we'd put out for him. I nearly stepped on him because I didn't realize he was there - and he was so blind and deaf, he didn't notice me. He was looking pretty bedraggled. He was skinny, hair sticking out everywhere, and the collar we'd put on him for identification purposes was sticking out at an odd angle. When we trapped him to put on the collar and take a variety of genetic samples, we'd realized he only had one canine and his other teeth were incredibly worn down - plus he had a tumor in his prostate. I went back out into the field that afternoon and he was sleeping in the shadow of a milk crate. The next morning, there was a pretty impressive rainstorm, and I never saw him again.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:44 AM on April 16, 2011

That rooster has seen it all.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:57 AM on April 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

thanks for these, nobody. beautiful way to start the day.


Sorry to rant.

when you feel the need to close a comment with an apology for even making the comment, that's a pretty good sign you should probably refrain from making said comment. thanks.
posted by jammy at 6:11 AM on April 16, 2011

Even if the photos are manipulated, there is still a nice sensitivity to them. My favourite is the old rooster, oddly enough. Our oldest budgies lived to be 12 and 11 respectively. It was interesting to watch Swifty age as his feathers started to turn grey and he had a noticeable saggy rear end, and a carbuncle on his foot. Then there was Jack, who had lost most of his feathers in the last year, but was surprisingly spry. I think towards the end he had also losing eyesight, but it was hard to tell. Seeing elderly animals is quite rare even for some pets.

Then there's the time factor - we got Swifty when I was in Grade 4 and he died when I was in college. It really makes one reflect on their own time. That one horse is as old as I am and can't conceive of all the human trends and culture he has lived through :-) What does time mean to an animal? I wish I could know.
posted by Calzephyr at 6:52 AM on April 16, 2011

I've had two house rabbits live past 12. They suffered the kind of infirmities you'd expect, like cataracts, arthritis and dental problems they didn't really look as old as they were.
posted by tommasz at 7:19 AM on April 16, 2011

I'm reminded of the time I spent working at the local animal shelter, and all the old, infirm, but still loving and affectionate cats and dogs that were surrendered to us for various reasons, and how very, very, very hard it was for us to find people willing to adopt them.
posted by Gator at 8:12 AM on April 16, 2011

...Give me ...elderly great apes.

Hookah-smoking Old Ape, as portrayed by SFX makeup master Rick Baker in his first screen appearance in Planet of the Apes (2001).

The real deal: Old Chimp Portrait with Hand II, Mahale, 2003 by wildlife photographer Nick Brandt.
posted by cenoxo at 8:16 AM on April 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

...Give me elderly elephants...

Anne, 59 — England's last circus elephant in bad times and good.
posted by cenoxo at 8:55 AM on April 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

That rooster has seen it all.

That rooster beat up Chuck Norris.
posted by stbalbach at 5:41 PM on April 16, 2011