For example, animals that live only a few days or a few years are often not very intelligent. In contrast, the most intelligent animals seem to live longer.
Is this true? Are there any studies to prove or disprove this statement?
For example, animals that live only a few days or a few years are often not very intelligent. In contrast, the most intelligent animals seem to live longer.
Is this true? Are there any studies to prove or disprove this statement?
Limiting the conversation to mammals, and taking relative brain size as a proxy for intelligence (which, of course is not necessarily "true", but at least is quantifiable), the answer is yes: body-size relative brain size correlates with body-size relative longevity in mammals.
using a global database of 493 species, we provide evidence showing that mammals with enlarged brains (relative to their body size) live longer and have a longer reproductive lifespan (González-Lagos et al.).
They present data by species in the paper, which is available free online, but so as to have something on SE, I've mocked up a chart based on the averages they give for each mammal order:
This is too long to be a comment. Life expectancy is apparently affected the size of an animal, and this is especially evident in mammals and supported by the heartbeat hypothesis. This hypothesis says that all mammals have a similar number of heartbeats, and that the larger an animal is, the less heart beats it has per minute. Therefore, the larger an animal, the longer it lives. A larger size is also associated with a larger brain (which is associated with higher intelligence, although this is not true in all cases since for example some dinosaurs were very large but had very tiny brains). All I'm saying is that any correlation between intelligence and life expectancy may not necessarily be brought about directly by intelligence, but by the size of the animal. Hope this helps.