What ages do the big five get to in the wild?
And the average antelope?


Karl.

A very short posting with a very long answer. It will also get a lot of us, certainly me, confused about what they remember from fiction stories - like Ruark and others, and what they remember from more factual books. A general rule is that the bigger the animal, the longer it lives! The question should be how old typically at the time of natural death? Some are likely to quote the "records", which may be quite a lot older than a typical death age. Elephant quite easily 70 years plus, rhino quite a bit less and lion & leopard less again, something like 15 years typical. Buffalo also about 15 years and antelope very much in proportion to size less.

I'm going to follow this posting carefully. I'm sure a lot will learn al lot from the replies. I do have an authoritive book in which to look up most, but would rather like to see what comes from the forum members.

Verewaaier.

Excellent point. I have no data but most buff get knocked off at 7 or 8 years old but some as old as 12 or 13 get hammered. I would guess that not many live much longer.

I was under the impression that eles only live to about 55 or 60 years, typically. I would imagine that most get hammered at much younger ages.

I would like to hear what average age spans are for the others also.

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