Why do Maine Coons take longer to reach adulthood compared to other cats?

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Why are Maine Coon cats slow developers? We are told all the time that they are but I have never seen any reason given for this. Provided that Maine Coons genuinely do develop slowly, I'll try and provide a reason but it won't come from anyone else. It's out of my head. Here goes (feel free to criticise in a comment).

Why do Maine Coons take longer to reach adulthood compared to other cats?
Looking old before his time. Image now in the public domain.

Bigger animals take longer, on average, to reach adulthood (see study at base of article). And bigger animals live longer than average because they have slower metabolism because in turn their surface area to mass is smaller therefore, they lose less body heat.

That's the general reasoning for the link between shorter lifespans and smaller animals.

How does this affect Maine Coons (MCs)? 

Well MCs are the largest domestic cat breed. They should have longer lifespans than the average cat for the reason given above.

The MC does not have a longer lifespan than normal and it may even be shorter than the lifespan of a moggie because of one clear reason: the MC suffers from a range of inherited diseases such as HCM, a heart disease which can kill. And another MC inherited disease, spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) shortens lives too.

Bundle in the inherited health issues linked to this breed and the lifespan is shortened to the point where it is no longer than average.

But the development to adulthood is the same as if their lifespan was going to be longer because they are bigger. The disease interrupt this equation.

They say MCs reach adulthood at around 4-years-of-age. If they live to age 16 their development period is 25% of their lifespan.

Taking the human, they are adult at the age of 18. A male child born in the United States today will live to be 74.5 years old on average. 

The development time for American humans is 24% of their lifespan. Not much different to MCs. 

The MC has a development period of a human in percentage of lifespan terms but a lifespan of a slightly unhealthy cat.

Study referred to: Charnov EL. Life History Invariants: Some Explorations of Symmetry in Evolutionary Ecology. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1993.

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