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[blue sam3]

I recently started a hermit fortress on a map with a revealed chasm with ~100 antmen/ratmen etc in. A few years into the game, I they all died within a few days of each other, with no evident cause. Any idea what could be causing this?

[Demonic Spoon]

Most chasm creatures have a pretty low maxage. It's set to about maximum of ten years. Thus a few years down the line they all start dieing of old age. One way to combat this is to mod them to make breeding possible.

[smjjames]

Many of the chasm creatures like Naked Mole Dogs have very short lifespans. It's not unusual for the Naked Mole Dogs to start dying off in the first year and for most cavern critters to be dead by year 4. You can always mod their maxage in the raws, but I think a regen is required.

Since the animal-men don't actually reproduce (this can be modded though and I think will be changed in the upcoming release), they'll tend to die around the same time.

Sometimes a few will hang on for a while longer, but what you experienced is standard for chasms.

Edit: ninja'ed by Demonic Spoon.

To add to what he said, Naked Mole dogs have especially short lifespans, about 2-3 years. They must have huge litters in order to sustain the species with that lifespan, or gestation is on the order of weeks.

[Demonic Spoon]

Yeah, I usually mod my chasm creatures live from around 20 to 30 year and make them all have multiple children per litter that quickly grow up.

[Niveras]

I had a similar issue with my underground river and the giant lizards/lizardmen/etc in it, only it was a normal fortress and it was only a year, maybe 1.5, before I got around to breaching the underground river for my initial purposes. I started the point at I think 203 or 204, and it is 207 now, but the inhabitants of the river were dead before 205 even. Were they getting knocked around by the waterflow, fighting each other, or getting tossed to lower levels by the waterfall and dying to collision?

The maxage of lizardmen and olmmen is 60:80 so I'm not inclined to believe I simply embarked just when that generation was almost dead to old age.

[XSI]

For an underground river, it is possible that they were swept into the chasm that ends the river, which often leads to them being..No longer alive.

On my forts with underground water, they tend to die slowly and seemingly randomly.

[Shiv]

Are there any packs where all these files have been modded already?  One thing that's always bugged me bout DF is the wildlife dies of way too quickly. 

My chasms always end up empty.  I pick a site with a chasm to spice up the game but it always ends up an empty reserve of...nothing.  Except maybe a noble/child freefall ride.

[Jim Groovester]

Another thing to keep in mind about chasm creatures and reproduction is that they won't have children until your dungeon master arrives.

I have no idea why this is the case, but I haven't seen any chasm critter or subterranean water critter breed without it.

I suspect it has to do with taming, but I've got lizardmen and frogmen breeding (after I added child tags), and they're not tameable. So go figure. Maybe the dungeon master just enables breeding for anything that isn't a [PET].

[Shurhaian]

Aha! So THAT'S why I'm suddenly getting messages about troglodytes giving birth...

[Braddles!?]

Whats a hermit fortress?

[blue sam3]

One dwarf, kill the other six starters, kill any immigrants (and optionally traders), and live on your own.

[Holy Mittens]

I've had cave crocodiles breeding plenty before the dungeon master shows up, and I've also never seen the various *men ever breed, despite me giving them all the ability to.