Nibblers age

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In I Second That Emotion, Fry, Leela and Bender take Nibbler to the vets after he broke his fang on Bender's ass.
    The vet says that Nibbler is 5 years old, but as we all know that's not possible seeing as he pushed Fry into the Cryo Tube in 1999.
     Does that mean He's 5000 / 50,000 / 5 million years old?
     

[#1 :]

The vet said that if Nibbler is anything like a common tree, then the rings may idicate his age, 5.
Presuming Nibbler is not like a tree, there is no way of knowing his age.
Presuming he is like a tree, then the rings may indicate his age in 1000s of years or 10000s of years etc.

[#2 :]

 They had his age on one of the menus of one of the DVDs.

[#3 :]

I know it's a bit stupid, and the joke is that fry is stupid but I always wandered if maybe Fry could see the 'real' age of nibbler in the teath and the doctor could had his mind altered or something to keep nibblers identity a secret. It's a pretty stupid idea but when I re-watched it after seeing the later episodes it made me think.

[#4 :]

SixByNine, I think you're on to something. Maybe Fry's lack of the delta brain wave allows him to see more clearly.

[#5 :]

That's a neat idea, SixByNine.  I like it.

So, if Fry saw a Vorlon outside of its encounter suit, would he see its true form?

[#6 :]

The vet could easily be wrong, but what everyone else seems to be forgetting is that a year is a planet-specific concept.  Nibbler isn't from Earth, so it wouldn't make sense for the rings in his teeth to measure his age in Earth years.  If the vet is right, maybe Eternium has a long orbit, and hence long years.

[#7 :]

 

Originally posted by EspanolBot:
 They had his age on one of the menus of one of the DVDs.

Correctamundo. According to the season two, disc two special features menu, Nibbler's age is 3,277.

[#8 :]

That make sense.  Take Pluto for example.  1 Pluto year is about 248 years on Earth.

[#9 :]

Ah right, I was getting confused because I always assumed that Nibbler had been around since the beginning of time.... which is quite a while.

[#10 :]

 

Originally posted by victor2000:
That make sense.  Take Pluto for example.  1 Pluto year is about 248 years on Earth.

True, but I'm fairly sure the Terran Year was used on the DVD menu. Nibblers race is longlived, they're not immortal.

[#11 :]

They are also celebrated poopers.

The vet uses the clarifier “if”. This means that the rings in Nibblers tooth could have nothing to do with his age (and apparently, according to nibbler himself, they do not). This is just good writing on behalf of the writers, as this scene does not conclude absolutely what Nibbler’s age is. 

[#12 :]

Rings indicate periods of growth, in plants they show years because of the seasonal pattern to plants growth, that may not be the case for Nibblonians. That said, I really like SixByNine's idea, we assumed Fry couldn't count the rings because he's an idiot but he could actually have been seeing 3,277 rings.

[#13 :]

 

According to the season two, disc two special features menu, Nibbler's age is 3,277.

And 3277 Terran years might or might not equal five Eternian years.

[#14 :]

In "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", it showed that Planet Eternium was the exact center of the universe.
With that in mind, let's now consider Earth.  An Earth year is the time it takes to go around our sun.  Therefore, an Eternium year would be the time it took to go around its sun.  Except, its the center of the universe!  Theoretically, everything in the universe revolves around the center of the universe (Earth revolves around the Sun, the Solar System revolves around the Milky Way, and the Milky Way revolves around the center of the universe, or Planet Eternium).
This means Planet Eternium doesn't revolve around anything, so you can't count years there.
Again, this is all just a theory.  Think about it.   

[#15 :]

Hmmmm, interesting theory Victor. However the Earth revolves around the Sun because of the bigger gravitational pull. So therefore if the whole universe is revolving around Planet Eternium surely the gravty on the planet would be so extreme that Fry and Leela would have been smushed....

[#16 :]

 

Originally posted by Coilette:
...surely the gravty on the planet would be so extreme that Fry and Leela would have been smushed....

I'm not sure, because the Nibblonians are older than time itself.  Maybe they would of developed some sort of anti-gravity pump of something.         

[#17 :]

 the vet in episode 1 series 2 says nibbiler is 5 but in later episode such as ''the day the earth stood stupid'' nibbler says his species have always been

[#18 :]

 

Originally posted by Arteta:
 the vet in episode 1 series 2 says nibbiler is 5 but in later episode such as ''the day the earth stood stupid'' nibbler says his species have always been

What does Nibbler's age have to do with the existence of his species? That's like saying I'm 21 but humans have been around for hundreds of years. My age has nothing to do with human existence. It's just how long I've been here. Same for Nibbler.

[#19 :]

 

Originally posted by Arteta:
 the vet in episode 1 series 2 says nibbiler is 5 but in later episode such as ''the day the earth stood stupid'' nibbler says his species have always been

He says "if he (Nibbler) is anything like the common tree, the rings might indicate his age". Nibbler is nothing like the common tree.

Nibbler's race is longlived, not immortal.

Welcome to PEEL. Enjoy it here.

[#20 :]

Nibbler is 5 but on the episode Space Pilot 3000 Nibbler is there before fry gets frozen

[#21 :]

The way I see it is that in human years Nibbler is only 5. But I'm sure he's millions of years old. Being that his planet was already 18 years old when the universe emerged.

[#22 :]

   

Originally posted by I.C.Weiner:
Nibbler is 5 but on the episode Space Pilot 3000 Nibbler is there before fry gets frozen

Huh? So? I'm confused...

   

Originally posted by Spacedal11:
The way I see it is that in human years Nibbler is only 5. But I'm sure he's millions of years old. Being that his planet was already 18 years old when the universe emerged.

Now I'm really confused.

I think the simple answer is that the vet was wrong.  Nibbler is not like the common tree, and the rings on his teeth have nothing to do with his age.  Besides, the vet was still woozy after being kicked by a gazelle and mauled by a jaguar anyway. 

[#23 :]

I agree with you because how can rings on an animals tooth be resembled to the commmon tree, I think the vet is whack

[#24 :]

I'm a vet nurse, trust me vets are really stupid considering the amount of time they spent at uni. Don't believe a word they say, i don't think it would change that much in the future.

[#25 :]

Vet tech's do all the work.
But yah man vet is like selling your soul to Uni. And Zoo Vet is worse.


That's neat about the DVD giving Nibbler's age. I didn't know that. Shame on me. Going to have to remember that fact.

In the vet's defence, you have to remember that he was still woozy from getting kicked by a gazelle thatr morning. And speaking as one of the few people who's actually been kicked by a gazelle(plus a host of other, much bigger antelope) they can really wail you one. But I'll take a kick with a hoof over a gouge with the horns any day!

[#26 :]

he is older then the universe

[#27 :]

Not neccesarily. The Niblonians, as a species, is older than the Universe, but the individual Nibblonian probably have a lifespan considerably shorter, probably a coupl of dozens millenia.

[#28 :]

I always felt that the line "Well, if he's anything like the common tree..." might have demonstrated that the Vet wasn't quite altogether on this one... seeing as Nibbler isn't that much like a tree, and all. (Well, as far as we know, he might be, but the vet didn't know that.)

I'm pretty sure teeth don't actually indicate age... is there an orthidontist in the house that can back me up? 

[#29 :]

The word astronomical comes into the mathematics of working out nibblers age through comparing Planet Eternium years to Earth year, if some of your ideas/ theories are correct that is.

[#30 :]

Maybe Eternium could be somewhere in which time goes more slowly than the rest of the universe, or if they could control the speed at which the universe aged and they did not.

[#31 :]

seeing that it takes a thousand years to pronounce the Niblonians names properly, Id say that they were a long living race.

[#32 :]

Of course they're a long living race, Nibbler even said that in TWOF, you people are stating the obvious like that Nibbler was there when Fry was frozen, Nibbler's speices has been around since before the beginning of time, that Nibbler hasn't, that Nibbler has, and so on going around in circles. You guys need to read the 8th post, the DVDs said Nibbler was 3277 years old, that answer's the thread all together, because the DVDs are all knowing. The vet saying that Nibbler was 5 was only going by the guess that the rings indicated age, but since the all knowing DVDs said he's not 5, than that means the vet was wrong or he didn't see all the rings, as said by sixbynine. So the vet is stupid, Nibbler is 3277 years old, he hasn't been around since the beginning of the universe, his species has been around since the beginning of universe, Fry is stupid but gifted, and so on. 

[#33 :]

Wow, haven't been on here in a little while...

[#34 :]

I think that since Nibbler froze himself in 1999, I think, that those years wouldn't count. Also, their species are very intelligent so who knows about the age of 5?
Edit: Just read gottalovebender's post and I think he is probably right. But this was just my oppinion on what could have been.

[#35 :]

Nibbler never froze himself.

[#36 :]

Yea, I know that now, but I haven't seen the episode in a while, and I mean a LONG while, and I forgot the ending so I just put some stuff together in my head. After a while I started to beileve myself, well anyways I am going to need to see that ep. again.

[#37 :]

I've been thinking this for a while...maybe the rings in Nibbler's fang indicates how many years he has left to live, I mean think about it.

[#38 :]

My vote is that the rings are meanningless and he's lived for 3,277 Earth years.

[#39 :]

I think he is 3,500-4,000 years old. It says it somewhere in ''The Dy The Earth Stood Stupid''.