Озвученный английский онлайн текст Age.
How old is old? А field mouse is old when it is only a year-and-a-half old. А person of this age is just past babyhood. An 8-year-old squirrel, a 15-year-old kangaroo, and a 20-year-old monkey
are as old as a person who has reached 70.
In comparison to animals, man lives for a long time. Only some kinds of land turtles live longer. Many people have wrong ideas about how old some animals live to be. Ever so many people believe that elephants and parrots live longer than people. But the oldest elephant that anyone knows about was only 60 years old. And the oldest parrot was 54.
Whales are a big surprise. They are so big that anyone would think it would take years and years for them to grow up. But whales reach their full size in about 12 years. They live to be only about 40.
All the above mentioned animals are animals with backbones. Some animals without backbones are old in a few weeks. A house fly, for instance, seldom lives for more than a summer.
“Old” means different ages for different plants too. The oldest trees are by far older than any animals.