>>Evolution doesn't seem to optimize for longer lifespans. Not quite true (if not weighting high on optimization). There are multiple species which are outlier

>>Evolution doesn't seem to optimize for longer lifespans. Not quite true (if not weighting high on optimization). There are multiple species which are outliers by lifespan in their niches: whales, hydras, etc. Even within rodent family there is a wide range of lifespans typical for a species - from ~2 years for a mouse to ~30 years for a naked mole rat. There are regenerative species with incredibly messy genomes which are biologically immortal. So relying on evolution as a main explanatory principle is not comprehensive enough (especially given that you can't currently reverse engineer much of the evolution subjects).