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Originally Posted by iris
Real rats have short life spans compared to humans. They reach puberty around six weeks, maturity around six months, and senescence probably around 1.5-2 years. Pet rats may live up to 3 years (4 is pushing it), but wild rats don't live even half that long.
If the guys are 17 years old in human years, then Splinter is over 500 years old in rat years. That's pretty gee-darn old! 1 human year equals roughly 30 rat years. However, in actual solar years, he can't be more than 2.5 years older than the turtles.
Let's pretend Splinter was 1.5 years old when he mutated. We'll pretend that's long enough for him to have gained maturity and picked up all his killer ninjutsu skillz, plus allow for Yoshi moving from Japan to NYC. In that case, Splinter was the equivalent of 45 (rat) years old when he mutated. If he had continued to age like a rat, he would probably have died about a year and a half later, but he apparently adopted a more human aging rate.
Assuming the guys are 17, this scenario (1.5 years old at mutation) puts him at a minimum of 62 human-equivalent years old. My guess is he is still aging faster than a human would, so it may be more like 70-80 in this scenario. He can still kick butt, but the guy is no Spring pup any way you figure it.
In my experience, when animals show greying due to age, it's usually only noticable in the whisker areas, and maybe at tiny bit on the eyebrows, tail, or undersides. I have really only witnessed this on dogs, cats, horses, goats, and cows, and have no idea if the same may apply to rats. Even if it does, I don't think the writers/artists on this would know.
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