AnAge entry for Cavia porcellus
Classification (HAGRID: 02858)
- Taxonomy
-
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia (Taxon entry)
Order: Rodentia
Family: Caviidae
Genus: Cavia
- Species
- Cavia porcellus
- Common name
- Guinea pig
Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits
- Maximum longevity
- 12 years (captivity)
- Source
- J. Veronica Kiklevich, pers. comm.
- Sample size
- Large
- Data quality
- High
- Observations
One virgin animal reportedly lived 12 years in captivity (Kiklevich, J.V., pers. comm.).
A study comparing rodent species has found that when comparing different rodent species, maximum longevity is associated with smaller rates of protein turnover. Animals of this long-lived species may have evolved towards reducing the energetic cost of continuous protein turnover, which in turn would lessen the quantity and the damage caused by reactive oxygen species produced in this process [1334].
Life history traits (averages)
- Female sexual maturity
- 66 days
- Male sexual maturity
- 76 days
- Gestation
- 68 days
- Weaning
- Litter size
- 3.8 (viviparous)
- Litters per year
- 5
- Inter-litter interval
- 96 days
- Weight at birth
- 85 g
- Weight at weaning
- Adult weight
- 728 g
- Postnatal growth rate
- 0.0106 days-1 (from Gompertz function)
- Maximum longevity residual
- 89%
Metabolism
- Typical body temperature
- 312ºK or 39.0ºC or 102.2ºF
- Basal metabolic rate
- 2.1300 W
- Body mass
- 639.1 g
- Metabolic rate per body mass
- 0.003333 W/g
References
- [1334] Swovick et al. (2018), Cross-species Comparison of Proteome Turnover Kinetics (PubMed)
- [0966] Edrey et al. (2012), Sustained high levels of neuregulin-1 in the longest-lived rodents; a key determinant of rodent longevity (PubMed)
- [1104] Jenkins (2010), Diseases of geriatric Guinea pigs and chinchillas (PubMed)
- [0978] Jones et al. (2009), PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals
- [0776] Seluanov et al. (2007), Telomerase activity coevolves with body mass not lifespan (PubMed)
- [0036] Savage et al. (2004), The predominance of quarter-power scaling in biology
- [0420] White and Seymour (2003), Mammalian basal metabolic rate is proportional to body mass2/3 (PubMed)
- [0610] Ernest (2003), Life history characteristics of placental non-volant mammals
- [0380] Ingham et al. (1999), Hair cell loss in the aged guinea pig cochlea (PubMed)
- [0434] Ronald Nowak (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World
- [0381] Ingham et al. (1998), The auditory brainstem response of aged guinea pigs (PubMed)
- [0455] Virginia Hayssen et al. (1993), Asdell's Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction: A Compendium of Species-Specific Data
- [0272] Anderson and King (1988), Subclinical lumbar polyradiculopathy in multiple aged mammalian species (PubMed)
- [0731] Zullinger et al. (1984), Fitting sigmoid equations to mammalian growth curves
External Resources
- Integrated Taxonomic Information System
- ITIS 584713
- Animal Diversity Web
- ADW account
- Encyclopaedia of Life
- Search EOL
- NCBI Taxonomy
- Taxonomy ID 10141
- Entrez
- Search all databases
- Ageing Literature
- Search Google Scholar or Search PubMed
- Images
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- Internet
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