Great article. Bats are another mammal that defy the trends of mammalian life expectancy (life-span proportional to size). And they do this despite having a much higher basal metabolic rate. Brand new research has shown that telomeres have a role to play. The secret to everlasting life may lie in many of these fascinating creatures, where evolution has already solved some of our problems.

ref: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/2/eaao0926