You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Shortwavers. It's your boy, Nate Rotten, 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.

Forever I'm, to be fair, normally lives only a few weeks. 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

lifespan 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?

...