Muscle fiber structure in an aging long‐lived seabird, the black‐legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla)

Many long‐lived animals do not appear to show classic signs of aging, perhaps because they show negligible senescence until dying from “catastrophic” mortality. Muscle senescence is seldom examined in wild animals, yet decline in muscle function is one of the first signs of aging in many lab animals and humans. Seabirds are an excellent study system for physiological implications of aging because they are long‐lived animals that actively forage...