Introduction: Lifespans and pathologies present at death in laboratory animals

This initial chapter introduces those that follow with a summary of the life spans and end of life pathologies of the several species that are included in later chapters. It is not presented as a complete coverage, but rather as background for what follows, as gathered from the literature and personal information. Included here is that information on yeast as Saccharomyces cervisiae, round worms as Caenorhabditis. elegans, the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, mice, rats, dogs, primates, and some bats and birds. The following chapters will compare findings in their specific area of coverage for those species for which such data is available. This brief introduction provides generally accepted species wild type life spans and the end of life pathologies, along with some special attributes that lend a species to a comparative biology approach.