AGING, THE FISHY SIDE - AN APPRECIATION OF COMFORT,ALEX STUDIES

Many years ago, Alex Comfort experimentally refuted Bidder's hypothesi s that fish potentially were immortal. Later morphological and physiol ogical studies, together with observations from fish populations in th e wild, revealed that fish age in a way similar to that in other verte brates. More recently, assessments of the age of fish have been revise d, and have shown that some species live much longer than was estimate d. These findings, together with the difficulties of demonstrating any increase in the rate of mortality with age in the long-lived, heavily exploited populations of fish, revived Bidder's ideas. I briefly revi ew some of the more recent literature, and conclude that there is no e vidence to suggest that fish are exceptional; like other vertebrates, sooner or later they grow old and die. Published by Elsevier Science I nc.