Joe Rollino, who once lifted 475 pounds with his teeth, was recently struck dead by a minivan at the age of 104. There are 60,000 plus centenarians in the United States but there are only 75 validated supercentenarians on the planet.

Mighty Joe Rollino was struck by a minvan while crossing the street in Brooklyn, earlier this month. At a nearby hospital, the man considered by some as “for his size, the strongest man that ever lived”—he lifted 475 pounds with his teeth and once pressed 600 plus pounds with a single finger—was pronounced dead. He was 104.

Rollino was a centenarian, a rank reserved for those who live above 100. There may be 60,000 or more of them in the United States. A far more elite status is that of supercentenarian, those people age 110 and up. The concept is so new it is not in most dictionaries, and according to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), which catalogues and verifies claims, there are only 20 verified supercentenarians in the U.S., and just 75 on the entire planet.

The GRG is a mix off homespun and highfalutin. Their simple website appeals for contributions “of even one dollar per month to further research” but also states the lofty goal of “slowing” and “ultimately reversing human aging within the next 20 years.” The GRG consists of physicians, scientists, engineers and a globetrotting clique known as supercentenarian claims investigators.

In 2006, a GRG claims investigator visited Maria Esther Capovilla in the industrial seaside city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Born in 1889, Capovilla was 116, and at the time, the oldest living person on earth. Sadly, six months after the GRG visit she died of pneumonia. Other GRG investigations have included the case of Mary and Rosabell Zielke, the world’s first confirmed mother-daughter supercentenarians, or that of Ruth Anderson, of Minnesota, who at 110 is the oldest singleton twin—her twin brother, Abel, died back in 1900, at the age of one.

Interest in the topic is blooming and there are a host of impressive institutions conducting research. The Supercentenarian Research Foundation is comprised by physicians from the U.S. and Europe and aims to increase lifespan for all. Boston University School of Medicine’s “New England Centenarian Study” began by looking at the genes of Bostonian centenarians and the Longevity Genes Project at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine focuses on the genes of Ashkenazi Jews. The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research’s International Database on Longevity is a centenarian tracking group, similar to GRG.

Longevityexperts.com offers a long list of tips for attaining supercentenarianhood, anything from buying an air filter, to walking three to five times a week and eating wild salmon and extra virgin olive oil. One of their tips seems more like a glimpse into a supercentenarian-friendly future: “Someday tiny nano-bots (nano sized robots) will float through the blood stream delivering all the nutrients that each part of the body needs, in just the correct quantities, based on each persons genetic make-up. These nano-bots will also be able to deliver medication to exact locations in precise doses.”

The Okinawa Centenarian Study has a particularly rich sample to work with; Japan accounts for one-third of the supercentenarians on the GRG’s master list. Among the group is Kama Chinen, a woman from Okinawa who having lived for 114 years and 258 days, is presently the world’s oldest person. Numerous books have capitalized on the aged success of the Okinawan people, such as “The Okinawa Way: How to Improve Your Health and Longevity Dramatically” and “The Okinawa Diet Plan: Get Leaner, Live Longer and Never Feel Hungry”.

What is the secret? Much of it may indeed be diet, deep sea fish like mackerel, sardines and salmon, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids; vegetables like peppers, broccoli, purple sweet potato and goya, a green, bumpy vegetable related to the watermelon, and a practice of reduced caloric intake called hara hachi bu, which entails eating until you are 80 percent full and then stopping. These relatively isolated tropical islands also benefit from fresh water and clean air. A tiny island near Okinawa called Tokushima produced Shigechiyo Izumi, who died at the age of 120 in 1986, perhaps the oldest man ever to live.

Izumi’s claim was never validated by the GRG, which was not founded until the early 1990s, and is, in general, disputed. The case raises an important question for tracking groups like GRG: How many supercentenarian lives end without being accounted for?

A New York Times article from 1897 gives the example of a man from Guadalajara, Mexico named Jesus Campeche, who, according to the article, died at the ripe age of 154:

“He was living with his great great grandson and had copies of the church register at Valladolid Spain, showing the date of his birth and baptism. According to these papers, he was born December 12, 1742. He related incidents which occurred in the last century, showing that he had told the truth or had stored his mind well with the happenings of that time. A priest in the church which he attended, who is now 84 years old, says he remembers Campeche as being an old man when he was a little boy.”

"Life-weariness and the determination to end miseries in a sudden manner are not confined to the human race," reads an 1878 article in "The Popular Science Monthly". The paper provides colorful examples of horses and dogs that have committed suicide. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

An 8 year-old lowland gorilla named Muchana was found dead in his sleeping quarters at the St. Louis Zoo, last Spring. He had pulled apart his climbing rope and become entangled. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claimed negligence, pointing out that the zoo had been fined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the connection with the death of two polar bears in 2007. Some reports suggested that Muchana may have committed suicide. Native American beliefs accommodate such an outcome, but what about Western ones?

“It has been asserted that ‘mere brutes’ never commit suicide,” reads an article in The Popular Science Monthly, from 1878. “This is a wanton, it might be said an impudent, assumption.”

Birds, reptiles and other caged animals can persistently refuse food; isn’t that suicide, the article argues.

More clear-cut animal suicides exist too. The article continues: “There are many instances among domestic animals, proving that life-weariness and the determination to end miseries in a sudden manner are not confined to the human race.”

The article presents the case of the dog of Mr. George Hone, of Frindsbury, in England:

“The dog had been suspected of having given indications of approaching hydrophobia, and was accordingly shunned and kept as much as possible from the house. This treatment appeared to cause him much annoyance, and for some days he was observed to be moody and morose. On Thursday morning he proceeded to an intimate acquaintance of his master’s at Upnar, on reaching the residence of whom, he set up a piteous cry on finding that he could not obtain admittance. After waiting at the house some little time, he was seen to go toward the river close by, when he deliberately walked down the bank, and after turning round and giving a kind of farewell howl, walked into the stream, where he kept his head under water, and in a minute or two rolled over dead.”

Then there is the case of a “very wealthy gentleman’s” horse:

“A few nights ago a poor creature, worn to skin and bone, put an end to his existence in a very extraordinary manner. His pedigree is unknown, as he was quite a stranger. A very worthy gentlemen here met him in a public market, and thinking that he could find an employment for him, put him to work, but it was soon discovered that work was not his forte; in fact, he would do anything save work and go errands. His great delight was to roam about the fields and do mischief. People passing him used to ejaculate, ‘Ugh, you ugly brute’ when they saw the scowl which was continuously on his face. His master tried to win him by kindness. The kindness was lost upon him. He next tried the whip, then the cudgel, but all in vain. Work he would not. And as a last resort the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar of old was tried. He was turned out, ‘but house or hauld,’ to eat grass with the oxen. With hungry belly and broken heart he wended his lonely way down by the Moor’s Shore, passed Luckyscaup, turned the Moor’s Point, and still held on his lonely way, regardless of the wondering gaze of the Pool fishermen. At length he arrived at a point opposite the wreck of the Dalhousie, where he stood still; and while the curiosity of the fishermen was wound to the highest pitch as to what was to follow, he, neighing loudly and tossing his old tail, rushed madly into the briny deep, got beyond his depth, held his head under water, and soon ceased to be. The fishermen conveyed the truth, although strange and startling, tidings to the respected owner, that his horse had committed suicide.”

One of the strangest cases of animal suicide involves a bird. A 1901 New York Times article, reports the story of one Henry F. Mattjetscheck, of Hackensack, New Jersey. Mr. Mattjetscheck’s parrot was “a fine talker”, loved by his household and often allowed to roam far from his cage. But when the family got a pet dog, the bird was no longer the center of attention.

One afternoon, the family went out: “When the family returned it is asserted the house was filled with gas, and the trouble was located in the kitchen, where the parrot had pecked a hole through the rubber tubing leading to the gas range and allowed the gas to escape. The bird was found lying dead beside the hole he tore in the piping; Mr. Mattjetscheck asserts that it intentionally inhaled the gas to end its life.”

The Cove, a documentary that covertly captures a dolphin slaughter in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji, won the Audience Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The protagonist is Richard O’Barry, Flipper's former trainer. He became a rabid animal rights crusader after Cathy the dolphin committed suicide in his arms.

Just before Earth Day, in 1970, Cathy the dolphin committed suicide in Richard O’Barry’s arms, changing his life forever.

“She looked me right in the eye, took a breath, held it—and she didn’t take another one,” O’Barry recently told New York Magazine. “She just sank to the bottom of the water. That had a profound effect on me.”

O’Barry helped capture and train the dolphins on “Flipper”, which didn’t exactly make him a friend of animal rights activists. Now, he is the star of one of the biggest animal rights films in years, “The Cove”, a documentary that covertly captures a dolphin slaughter in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji. He credits Cathy’s suicide as the turning point that transformed him from animal captor to animal liberator.

For Americans, O’Barry’s suicide story may seem ridiculous. Science tells us that animals can’t intentionally kill themselves. But Native Americans view animal suicide, and death in general much differently.

“The non-native mindset is so fearful,” said Maya Piñon, a Native-born naturalist who is working on a book about animal suicide. “The culture to which I was born tells me there is nothing to fear about death. Sure, you fight to live as long as you can but when that moment comes you’re like, ‘Okay, game over, I’ve gone on to the next dimension.’”

Piñon is of Eastern Woodland Indian descent and was raised with native values. She grew up in a rural area, in nature. “Most of my playmates were not human beings,” she said. “I always had animals and critters.”

She drew her worldview from the stories of elders, which did not separate man from animal. “We are all part of creation in Native American cosmology,” said Piñon. “The creator is the creation is the creator.”

Animals show signs of awareness all the time but most people miss them or misinterpret them. For example, a common hunting story is that a large stag locks eyes with a hunter and then strides directly at him, marching right into his bullets. “People say, ‘Stupid deer, he doesn’t even know this guy is going to shoot him,’” said Piñon.

But might this story actually portray an animal that is willingly giving its life to the hunter?

“Hunters would rather brag about the 15 point buck they just bagged,” said Piñon, “and not that grandpa buck said today is the day to die and I am giving you my body.”

The difference may be in how one regards science.

“I think the mistake we tend to make in this culture is to turn everything over to scientists and let them have the last say,” said Piñon. “From a Native American cosmology that is foolhardy, because everything is related and there are always at least three reasons for something.”

One of Piñon’s most potent  animal suicide stories doesn’t involve a Native American, but a scientifically-minded worker at a Cornell University nature center. The man heard brakes screech outside and ran to the road to find that a woman had hit a woodchuck. The rear end of the animal was flattened and it was dragging itself in circles by its two front legs. Thinking to end its misery, the man fetched his supervisor and the two returned with a baseball bat. As they walked toward the woodchuck, it stopped panicking and stared at them. Then, it dragged itself down the road, into a ditch, up an embankment and into a pond. “This is a non-swimming mammal making a conscious decision to drown itself,” said Piñon.

Death by drowning is a common theme in the animal suicide stories Piñon has collected for her book. But, some animals choose far more gory exits, like her good friend’s German shepherd, which lived to a ripe old age, then lay down in front of a train.

Animal suicides can vary, Piñon explained, just like human suicides. And they can be just as difficult to define.

“Someone who chain smokes and comes from a family of chain smokers is on a slow motion death spiral,” she said. “The other end of the spectrum is someone who juggles nitroglycerine. Is that a slow motion suicide, or tempting fate?”