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I've been reading a lot about longevity and I came up with this Wikipedia article where it states that it might be possible for lobsters to live indefinitely.

Recent research suggests that lobsters may not slow down, weaken, or lose fertility with age. In fact, older lobsters are more fertile than younger lobsters. This longevity may be due to telomerase, an enzyme that repairs DNA sequences of the form "TTAGGG".[9] This sequence is often referred to as the telomeres of the DNA.[10][11] It has been argued that lobsters may exhibit negligible senescence and some scientists have claimed that they could effectively live indefinitely, barring injury, disease, capture, etc.[12] Their longevity allows them to reach impressive sizes. According to the Guinness World Records, the largest lobster was caught in Nova Scotia, Canada, and weighed 20.15 kilograms (44.4 lb).[13][14]

I seriously find this hard to believe, so under the right circumstances, can lobsters maintain their Negligible Senescence forever?

Sklivvz
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isJustMe
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    You are citing the research that says it can. I am not sure what you expect to have as a better answer. – Chad Mar 19 '12 at 20:35
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    I'm not citing the research itself, I'm citing an article that says there is a research. What I'm expecting is more detail, perhaps someone else find another research or something, if everyone followed what you are saying the site wouldn't exist. – isJustMe Mar 19 '12 at 20:48
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    Related: [Is it impossible to tell a lobster's age?](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/6561) (BTW, what they talk about in the article is _“Negligible Senescence”_.) – Hendrik Vogt Mar 19 '12 at 21:37
  • It is without doubt that these animals can live a long time. The answer to your question is to determine the extent to which "negligible" is indeed negligible. The answer to the later is deeply intertwined with an extremely lucrative market. I would note that there is an extreme financial interest to claim that some animals are ageless and this invariably will screw the research. The mechanics for the abnormal longevities are a current area of research and an honest answer will only be available in the comming years. Even to your lobster question. – Mikhail Mar 19 '12 at 22:09
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    @Rafael.IT - The article you cited was linked to the original research. Had you looked at these? There is also a large difference between not having a finite life expectancy and being immortal. – Chad Mar 20 '12 at 13:09
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    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1196/annals.1297.096/abstract;jsessionid=3FF35754DF997B66321B8523D4543077.d03t03 and http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/Telomeres.html – Chad Mar 20 '12 at 13:56
  • @Chad those links are not the research related with lobsters, at ajax333221 lol please do :p – isJustMe Mar 22 '12 at 03:58
  • Quite interesting subject, I would love to know if other animals do not age the same way (if at all) as the well known homo sapiens ;) – Nils Mar 22 '12 at 11:48
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    If they would live forever, they cells would divide forever, with non-zero chance of mutation that would mean, eventually they'd have to have cancer (funny thing, that *cancer* is actually Latin for lobster ;-) – vartec Mar 22 '12 at 15:00
  • I've heard this same thing being said about turtles, or at least some species of turtles. – Ilari Kajaste Apr 04 '12 at 14:44
  • The important question here is how does garlic butter influence lobster aging? – Chris Cudmore May 02 '12 at 18:24
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    Without a way to determine age, it would seem to be an unanswerable and untestable hypothesis. – Russell Steen May 02 '12 at 20:13
  • @Nils: Bacteria are the example I've heard of before. They just divide, don't die of old age. Never heard it about any animals. – endolith May 03 '12 at 19:52
  • @endolith True, but the two part resulting are daughters of the first one. Hence, we could say that the bacteria "die" from giving birth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_(biology) – Zonata Sep 02 '12 at 20:12
  • @Zonata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms#Biological_immortality – endolith Sep 03 '12 at 03:07
  • @vartec actually, it's latin for crab... anyway, isn't it true that under the *right* circumstances, anything could theoretically *live* forever? – Duralumin Dec 03 '13 at 08:04
  • @Duralumin: well, in theory and in practice [telomeres](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere) prevent indefinite cell growth. – vartec Dec 03 '13 at 10:03
  • @vartec but that's because the circumstances are not right enough. Don't take that comment too seriously (I italicized right and live), I was just pointing out that "right circumstances" and "live" are pretty broad terms and could be subject of interpretation. Mostly I commented to correct the "cancer" thing and I piggybacked a bit of personal thought. – Duralumin Dec 03 '13 at 10:32

2 Answers2

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Emerging Area of Aging Research: Long-Lived Animals with “Negligible Senescence”

Field observations have suggested for quite some time that certain fish, turtles, and invertebrates have extremely long maximum life span potential. Age validation techniques have since confirmed these observations, but scientific analysis to understand the genetic and biochemical basis of this longevity has occurred only recently. The Centenarian Species and Rockfish Project now encompasses 13 pilot research projects, including such diverse investigations as histology, a cDNA library, and mitochondrial mutation analysis. In this document, the term “negligible senescence” is defined, and its background is given; age validation techniques are listed, and the various projects to date, including research results, are summarized.

Longevity of lobsters is linked to ubiquitous telomerase expression.

Lobsters (Homarus americanus) grow throughout their life and the occurrence of senescence is slow.[...]We conclude that telomerase activation is a conserved mechanism for maintaining long-term cell proliferation capacity and preventing senescence, not only in cellular models or embryonic life stages but also in adult multicellular organisms.

Answer:

We don't know, and there are probably better examples of biological immortality than lobsters. It is still a matter under extensive research.

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Astyanax
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No, they aren't immortal. They may not die of senescence, but they do eventually die. What kills them is being trapped in their shells.

Each molt takes more and more time and energy, and as the lobster grows older it becomes more likely to fail to molt successfully. Once this happens, the lobster is doomed. Bacteria and parasites start forming scar tissue around the shell, which consumes the lobster from the outside in. Lobsters also sometimes just die of exhaustion during the molts.

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