History Main / HumanlikeAnimalAging

* '''Human-like Baby Animal Body Proportions:''' This is when baby animal is inaccurately given body proportions like those of human babies. For example, real-life calves, fawns, lambs, and foals have long legs, so that they can stand shortly after birth and reach to suckle. Some examples are animal equivalents of the ThreeMonthOldNewborn trope.

* In ''Animation/WillyTheSparrow'', Willy (a human [[BalefulPolymorph transformed into a sparrow]]) and Cipur are exactly the same age. Willy is in his early teens, Cipur is a very old bird.

* Partially averted with the fawns in ''WesternAnimation/{{Bambi}}'' as they have long, ungainly legs like real fawns, but round heads and high foreheads like human babies.

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* Originally averted by ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'', who mentions on his second birthday that the human equivalent of fourteen, and complains about aging ever since he turned four. Later played straight, as he's still relatively healthy and active over 30, though the average lifespan of a housecat is 12-14 years at the least and 20 years at the most. It's possible for cats to live longer than 20 however. In Scotland, there was a cat that was reported to have lived to be 43 years old. While there are unconfirmed reports of cats living longer, like the aforementioned report, the oldest cat ever recorded, Creme Puff, was 38 years and died three days later.

* Inverted in ''VisualNovel/{{Nekopara}}'' as a case of [[InvertedTrope Animallike Human Aging]], all catgirls grow and age like their real life counterpart, the most absurd example goes to Coconut, being a Maine Coon, she has the body of an adult woman despite being ''[[YoungerThanTheyLook 1 year old]]''.

* ''VideoGame/BugFables'' justifies this trope as part of the AnthropomorphicTransformation brought upon by the "Great Awakening". Notably, the lifespans seem to be increased proportionally; termites still live longer than ants, and the queens are implied to live for even longer than that, with the Ant Kingdom inkeepers having gone through several generations in the time it took for a single change of Ant Queen.

* Averted in ''Literature/WarriorCats''. Aside from a few inaccuracies, they age and develop just like real cats do. The exceptions to the lifespan rule are the clan leaders, who have 9 lives. They measure age for kittens as "moons".

* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' ducks are actually born from eggs which has a surprising amount of plot relevance, [[spoiler: because it means Della has never seen her sons alive in person. This drama obviously wouldn't be possible if they were born alive humans are.]]

* It's enforced in the case of ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'', where the rats and mice who were experimented on at NIMH were given long lifespans. It's mentioned that Johnathan Brisby would have far outlived his wife, a simple field mouse, had he not been killed by a cat first.

* In WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017 ducks are actually born from eggs which has a surprising amount of plot relevance, [[spoiler: because it means Della has never seen her sons alive in person. This drama obviously wouldn't be possible if they were born alive humans are.]]

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the Fishmen (a FishPeople, not a HalfHumanHybrid) ages not unlike humans. Evidenced in Hody Jones and his New Fishman Pirates, who, after a steroid-induced RapidAging, are shown with wrinkles, saggy eyesockets, gray beards and teeth loss.

* Rufus the cat from ''Disney/TheRescuers'' has a grey moustache that indicates his old age.
* Jock the Scottish Terrier from ''Disney/LadyAndTheTramp'' has a grey moustache and bushy grey eyebrows.

* Many coming of age Disney movies that feature {{Nearly Normal Animal}}s, like ''Disney/{{Bambi}}'', ''Disney/TheLionKing'', ''Disney/LadyAndTheTramp'', and ''Disney/TheFoxAndTheHound'' avert this by showing the animals develop and age like their real counterparts.

* Partially averted with the fawns in ''Disney/{{Bambi}}'' as they have long, ungainly legs like real fawns, but round heads and high foreheads like human babies.
* The calves and lambs in the ''Mickey and the Beanstalk'' of ''Disney/FunAndFancyFree '' have long, ungainly legs like real calves and lambs. In fact, many other classic Disney works that show calves, lambs, and fawns show them with the correct leg proportions.
* Newborn lions in ''Disney/TheLionKing'' are basically the animal equivalent of the ThreeMonthOldNewborn trope. They're large and already have their eyes open.

* ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' usually plays this straight, as the babies are typically stubby mini versions of their mother. ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonAWonderfulLife'' averts it by having realistically proportioned animals.

* In ''Fanfic/ClaroDeLuna'', Octavia (a pony) died of old age at twenty-six. This accentuates the MayflyDecemberRomance between her and the millenia old Luna.

* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':

* ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'': Nick Wilde is thirty-two years old, and Judy is twenty-four. Foxes and rabbits in real life live much shorter than that.
** In a FreezeFrameBonus moment, we find that Judy's grandfather Otto [[https://zootopia.fandom.com/wiki/Bunnyburrow/Gallery#Screenshots is 101 years old]].

** Ponies seem to live as long as humans. On the other hand, baby ponies seem to develop very quickly, like real horses. Also, though it's debated to what extent it was intended to imply this, the very elderly Granny Smith was present for the founding of Ponyville, and that was later established to have happened quite some time ago. If taken at face value, Granny's been in the triple digits longer than most of the cast has been alive, with other generations having come and gone, suggesting that rarely, some ponies can live a great deal longer than is normally possible. The comic character Professor Inkwell is a similar case: looks very old now; looked younger when some adult ponies were children... and looked just as young for events that should be well before her time even then, but it's unclear if it's WritersCannotDoMaths at work.

** Kittens, both ocelot and cat [[note]]Cats ingame are the domestic forms of ocelots, whereas real life cats are domestic Near Eastern wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica)[[/note]], are born with their eyes open and with their genetically predetermined eye color (green for the black tuxedo and ginger tabby cats and blue for the seal point Siamese cats) already showing, making them literal ThreeMonthOldNewborn kittens. Real cats/wildcats open their eyes at seven days and their adult eye color appears at as early as six weeks.

* In ''Fanfic/ClaroDeLuna'', Octavia died of old age at twenty-five. This accentuates the MayflyDecemberRomance between her and the millenia old Luna.

* Arizona from ''VideoGame/ThemsFightinHerds'' is a one year old {{Partially Civilized Animal|s}} calf. Other characters age similar to their real counterparts. Unicorns and longma age slower than "normal" animals.

* Arizona from ''VideoGame/ThemsFightinHerds'' is a one year old {{Nearly Civilized Animal|s}} calf. Other characters age similar to their real counterparts. Unicorns and longma age slower than "normal" animals.

* Akamaru from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' is two years old at the start but is still a small puppy. Within not even three years, he hit a huge growth spurt. As a puppy he rode on Kiba's head, but as an adult Kiba could ride him like a horse. In the [[DistantFinale final chapter]] he's very, very old looking but alive some fifteen to twenty years later. Large dog breeds tend to have short lifespans. In Akamaru's case it can be justified in that he's a fictional breed of ninja dog.

* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': Sonic and his friends. Most of them, including Sonic himself, are stated to be teenagers between 14-16, while the younger ones such as Tails are between 6-8. Amy Rose is in the middle at 12. Their ages are a case of AllThereInTheManual, but they typically do behave the same as humans that age.

* '''Human-like Lifespan/Longevity:''' This is when an animal character has the same longevity as a human, that is, live as long as a human. Depending on the species this is either accomplished by shortening or lengthening their life span. A way to avert this is to use the species' normal life span, and give a multiplier to calculate how old the animal would be if it was a human. For example, a normal year would be seven "dog-years": a two-year-old dog is about as old as a fourteen-year-old human.
* '''Human-like Aging Process:''' This is when an animal character shows their age in the way that a human does. Examples of this include gray hair or fur even on a non-mammal character, wrinkles, liver spots, bushy eyebrows, balding head (often in the form of FurryBaldness), and sagging NonMammalMammaries.

* '''Human-like Baby Animal Body Proportions:''' This is when baby animal is inaccurately given body proportions like those of human babies. For example, real-life calves, fawns, and foals have long legs, so that they can stand shortly after birth and reach to suckle. Some examples are animal equivalents of the ThreeMonthOldNewborn trope.

* '''Precocial Altricial Baby Animals:''' This is when a baby animal of an altricial species is inaccurately portrayed as less altricial or more precocial than in real life. One variant is an animal that is born furless or hatches featherless in real life is depicted as being born fully furred or being fully feathered when it hatches. Newly-hatched songbirds, parrots, and pelicans are featherless and helpless in real life. Some examples are animal equivalents of the ThreeMonthOldNewborn.