Short Wave - What's this super-aging butterfly’s longevity secret?

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

What if there were a great ape species that could live over 1,000 years? That’s basically Heliconius in the butterfly world. The insects live around 25 times longer than their butterfly cousins, and scientists think they have one clue as to why: pollen. But as Katie Wu, a science writer at The Atlantic, explains, that’s not the whole story. She and host Nate Rott also talk about how bats sip from the fountain of youth – and what it all may mean for humans.Read Katie's full story here.If you liked this episode, check out our episode on a pill that could extend dogs’ lives…and maybe yours someday. Interested in more science about aging? Email us your question at [e-mail] public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. It includes perks like bonus episodes, early access, archive access, curated playlists and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Shortwavers. It's your boy Nate Rot in the host chair. Maybe it's because I'm turning 40 this year. And I'm reminded of my mortality every time I pull my aching body out of bed. But man, there's a certain song from the 80s that's really been hidden. Absolute banger. And then I recently learned about this butterfly that does live the butterfly equivalent of forever, 25 times longer than other butterflies, which, you know, to be fair, normally lives only a few weeks.

To put that in perspective, it would be like if we found another great ape out there that could survive for more than a millennium compared to our puny, like, I don't know, 75-ish years. Katie Wu is a science journalist for the Atlantic. She's how I learned about this little guy, because she recently wrote about this genus of long-lived butterflies called heliconious for work. And they seem pretty ordinary at first glance. I mean, they're cute, they're colorful, they love to drink nectar, standard butterfly stuff. But then they just keep living and living and living and living, like for months at a time. How these butterflies defy aging?

That's still somewhat of a mystery. Sorry, Fountain of Youth Seekers. But scientists do have a clue. They know their longevity has something to do with pollen, but how exactly they're making use of that pollen to extend their lifespans is still kind of a mystery. Today on the show, studying a super aging butterfly. What scientists do and don't know about what causes their long lifespans and what lessons humans could take from it, including whether pollen is worth adding to your anti-aging regime,

assuming you have one. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Okay, Katie, other than the fact that these heliconious butterflies live so much longer than their butterfly cousins. Like, why is their long lifespan so surprising? I'd say there are kind of two scary parts to this whole process of aging, right? It's like actually getting old and then actually stopping living. All things eventually stop living. I don't think we can avoid the death part of this equation. But I think the prospect of aging, like losing our physical and mental capabilities, deteriorating, looking wrinkly and gray and our hair ending up in all the weird places. Like, that is very unappealing to a lot of people.

These butterflies not only live very long, but they spend their adult lives, like, still remaining extremely vigorous and active and capable of producing offspring, like, functionally, they are kind of going hard until their last day, which is absolutely wild. The researchers who have been looking into them will, you know, sometimes study captive populations of these butterflies, and they'll see. adult butterflies zooming around their cave, gorging on nectar, mating in the afternoon, maybe laying some eggs, and then come nightfall, they just drop dead. It's like, oh, guys, I'm going to the gym, thud. It's just out of nowhere. They seem to just stop. They're like literally

living their best lives until the very end. Absolutely. And that really just defies our typical, intuitive conceptions of aging. And while these butterflies, you know, they do kind of fade in terms of coloration over time, that's pretty much the only thing that scientists can see. Otherwise, they're doing their most important evolutionary purposes, right? Like, they're nourishing their bodies, they're mating, they're producing offspring until they just don't. So scientists thought Heliconius might be living longer because it was eating pollen. I got to ask, like, how does a butterfly eat pollen? Like, they don't even have mouths, right? It's a great question. And, Okay, butterflies have mouths, right? But what they really, really, really fundamentally lack is, you know, really strong jaws and teeth, the kind you might expect if you are dealing with pollen. And I don't know how many, you know, of us humans really appreciate this. We look at flowers and we're like, oh, this lovely like yellow powder. It must be so soft and fluffy. It's like eating cotton candy. But no, pollen is hardcore. It's like these really coarse, hard grains that you generally need to.

grind apart with something really tough. I mean, maybe picture, it's like granola for insects. And right, how do you manage that? An adult butterfly has a proboscis. It's basically this long straw because for most adult butterflies, all you really need to do is sip nectar, basically drink sugar water through a straw that comes out of your face. And so scientists have actually been really puzzled by how heliconius butterflies manage to grind pollen down into a usable form. As far as they can tell, they'll collect the pollen on that straw-like structure, the proboscis, and kind of just move the proboscis around. Maybe they, you know, ooze out some saliva enzymes to help, you know, with the mechanical process of breaking it down. But it is still kind of a mystery. No matter what exactly happens in that

process, though, they eventually slurp up whatever mixture they've made, and they're able to extract nutrients to the tune of living a lot longer than their close relatives. It's like drinking a boba tea, but, you know, being able to like smash up the boba somewhere in the straw along the way, is what I'm thinking of. It truly is like drinking granola with a straw that is attached to your face. Okay, so these butterflies are taking the time to find this pollen and grind it up. Do we know if that's what's causing them to live so much longer? That's just the leading theory? What is knowledge? I ask myself every day. I would say this is the leading idea, but the story is a little bit more complicated than that. It's not just like if you feed any

animal or even any butterfly pollen, it's going to all of a sudden live 25 times longer. Something about the heliconius body has, I guess, adapted them to being able to process this pollen. So, for instance, if researchers give another type of butterfly some pollen and they're able to even, like, grind it up for them, they don't actually live longer. It's not, you know, this magic elixir that can just impart longevity onto any given species. Something about the heliconius has allowed them to sort of evolve alongside this resource and give them access to it. And so when you deprive them of pollen, they live a little bit less long. But it's not like they revert back to a common butterfly that only lives a few weeks. They still live a little bit longer than their close relatives. It just sort of dampens their potential. So if I went outside and started licking flowers, it wouldn't extend my lifetime.

I don't think so. I mean, I can't really promise anything. But I will say, like, depending on which flower you look, it could also kill you. So look at your own risk. Okay. Yeah. Well, live fast, die young. as the butterflies do. Or die old? I mean, but you've done a lot of reporting on this idea of longevity, and you've reported on other animals that have long and healthy lifespans, namely bats. Like, what is their secret?

Yeah, bats are wild. And I am fascinated by bats because they seem to have a variety of strategies that help them live a lot longer than you would expect. And bats, you know, they are mammals, so more similar to us. us than these butterflies. And they sort of defy that rule that you were talking about earlier, right? You would expect them to be more like a mouse, you know, not live that long, have a ton of babies, die quickly. But a lot of bats can live for a really, really, really long time.

And scientists think that, you know, there's a few things going on. One strategy seems to be that they were able to shut down their bodies to a really extreme degree during hibernation. It's like putting your body in deep freeze. And, you know, we humans can maybe roll. relate to this if anyone has ever heard of the process of like cryogenically freezing someone. It's like we're trying to mimic that process, right? We grind our metabolism to a near halt. We lower our body temperature. Because part of the idea of aging is, you know, maybe it's just the accumulation of wear and tear on the body. So if you can slow down all the things that tend to accumulate damage in our bodies, maybe we just extend the lifespan of something a little longer. It's really a lot like just

being really careful with your car, right? It's going to last you longer if you don't ding it up a bunch along the way. Makes me wish I could like sleep harder, you know, like go into like a somewhat hibernative state. Totally. And, you know, some of the other things that bats do are a little bit harder to mimic even with modern technology. But, you know, just the way that they sort of control their immune responses, they're less reactive, I'd say. They produce fewer of the inflammatory immune responses that can also create a lot of damage in the body. But that really is the name of the game for a lot of animals that live a long time. They're either able to stave off some of the damage that would typically kill a body as expected,

or they're able to do a lot of extra repair in the body. So even if that damage builds up, they can take care of it really quickly in ways that human bodies can't. So anytime I hear about the idea of, like, like animals, you know, nobody cheats death, but extending life. You know, humans have been obsessed with the idea of the fountain of youth for forever, right? What lessons do you think we can learn from these animal aging studies, you know, besides not going out and licking every flower for pollen? Yeah, it's a really interesting question and such a natural one. I admit that I probably don't have the most exciting answers for you. I mean, I wish I could tell you, like, oh my God, I just created this,

new pollen protein bar and if you go out and buy it, we're all going to live like an extra 100 years. It's not that simple. I think part of the lesson here is that it's not just that these animals have figured out like things in their environment or like day-to-day strategies to live longer. Like, oh, if I just hibernate, I'll live longer. If I usually eat this pollen, I'll live longer. Their bodies have to be adapted to sort of make the most out of those strategies, right? like bats evolved to be able to hibernate and shut their bodies down in ways that human bodies naturally can't. Heliconious butterflies are able to extract nutrients from that pollen in ways that even close relative butterflies can't do. It's not just about the pollen. It's about how receptive the body is

to the pollen or to the hibernation. And so I think it's a good lesson for humans because there's some humility in this, right? I'm not saying that we should give up on eating well or getting enough rest or taking care of our bodies in other ways, I think those things can help us live better, healthier lives and maybe even live longer than some other people who aren't practicing those good lifestyle habits. But there is a cap, right? A cap on how much impact that can have on a single lifespan. On a more encouraging note, human lifespans have really, really, really extended, even in the past couple centuries, right? When our babies stopped dying of, terrible infectious diseases with the advent of antibiotics and vaccinations and better hygiene,

we have extended the average human lifespan. And so it's not to say that technology and innovation and modern medicine have played a role in helping us live longer. But I think one thing that people often forget is that the average lifespan has ticked up because we've cut down on a number of really young babies and kids that have died. There have been people living into their 80s for a very long time. And so we probably do have to acknowledge that there is, to some degree, an evolutionary cap. And I doubt that even with all of the super interesting hacks from medicine to diets to vaccines,

all those things are good. But those alone are probably not going to all of a sudden add, you know, 50 years to the typical human lifespan at this point. Katie, thank you so much for bringing us this reporting. Of course. And I hope you and I both live exactly as long as we want to. to long prosperous lives. Exactly. Shortwavers, if you want to live forever,

or if you just like this episode, follow us on the NPR app or whichever app you like to use. This episode was produced by Burley McCoy, edited by her showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez, and fact-checked by Tyler Jones. The audio engineer was Jimmy Keely. I'm Nate Rott. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.

I want to be forever. Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever?