Charles Darwin's Tortoise, World's Oldest Animal, Turns 175

She was 30 when the Civil War ended. Amazing!

Wow, she's gorgeous! That is amazing. Too bad she can't talk and tell us stories.

I love the story.
She shared the air with Darwin. :wink:

Yeah, and I though parrots lived long lives! They're positively kids next to the tortoise.

I read today there is an older tortoise who is 200 years old.

Link please.

Tui Malila
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

(1953)Tu'i Malila was the name of a tortoise given to the royal family of Tonga by captain James Cook. It was a Madagascar Radiated Tortoise (Geochelone radiata).

This particular tortoise was given to the royal family in either 1773 or 1777, the exact date is not known. It remained in the care of the Tongan royal family until its death by natural causes on May 19, 1965. This means that upon its death, Tu'i Malila was either 188 or 192 years old, but either figure gains it the title of oldest Cheloniinae (tortoise or turtle) ever recorded. It is also the oldest living animal ever known. During the Queen Elizabeth II's Royal Tour of Tonga in 1953, the tortoise was one of the first things shown to the monarch on her official visit to the island nation.

External link
http://www.tongaturismo.info/rt/index-e.htm

Ah to be a tortoise...

Thanks, Trep. The point is though, Harriet is the oldest known tortoise living now.

I'm going to take this opportunity to point out again that this tortoise has the right to be described as the world's oldest living animal--but not the oldest living "creature." As "creature" can be construed as being any living thing, there are trees which are far older.

Here is a CBC report of a red spruce said to be in excess of 400 years old.

This site reports on bristlecone pine trees in California said to be as much as 4000 years old.

Whatever the support for such claims may be, it seems rather obvious that the oldest living things on earth are going to be trees.

Oh my goodness, Happy Birthday Harriet!

I wasn't refuting a point. I was merely adding some substantive information on the ages of turtles.

My grandma is 101. She just might beat Harriet!

Daily Mail paper, today or yesterday.

But is the turtle still able to carry on a decent conversation?

Do some turtles have fleas?

Perhaps if you used the same language as the tortoise? :wink:

Sand fleas?

This seems to be the week for tortoise news. Story in this week's New Yorker magazine (Nov. 21 issue) about a pair of young (16 years or thereabouts) 50-pound Galapagos tortoises being settled into temporary quarters at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, along with five Argentine horned frogs and a green iguana. It's all part of a major exhibit, opening next week, on Charles Darwin.