Check this out:
World's oldest Party Girl (175 Year Old Tortoise)
Daily Telegraph (Australia) 10/10/05
Harriet the tortoise ... 175 years young. She was originally collected
by legendary botanist Charles Darwin, who promptly went and
mis-identified her as a male. SOON to turn 175 years of age, Harriet the Galapagos
tortoise - possibly the world's oldest living creature - is finally
getting the recognition she surely deserves.
Harriet, which was first taken from her home on the Galapagos Islands,
off South America, by English naturalist Charles Darwin, is now the
subject of a book about her amazing life.
Harriet was hatched in 1830. Five years later, she and two other
tortoises were collected by Darwin and taken to England aboard his ship, HMS
Beagle.
The three, then named Tom, @@@@ and Harry, were cared for by Darwin,
but five years of freezing English winters and a lack of sunshine reduced
them to a state of virtual hibernation and they were brought to
Australia in 1842.
@@@@ died in the late 1880s and it is not known where its remains were
buried, while Tom died in 1949.
In 1960, a visiting director of Hawaii's Honolulu Zoo examined Harry
and found he was a she, a move that prompted the name Harriet. She now
lives at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo.
Three other tortoises are believed to have lived to a greater age than
Harriet but have died.
Of the 15 sub-species of giant tortoise, some weighing more than 200kg,
only 11 remain and it is expected a fifth will become extinct.
Their numbers have been depleted due to harvesting by seamen and the
release of feral animals which have destroyed their food and eaten their
eggs.
Harriet will celebrate her 175th birthday with a party at the zoo on
November 15.
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Rusty