photo of the tortoise with this link
Darwin’s tortoise: Still going strong at 175 years old
HARRIET the tortoise is still sticking her neck out as the Grand Old Dame of the animal kingdom. She was discovered by naturalist Charles Darwin several lifetimes ago.
Now the wrinkly Galapagos tortoise is a pensioner pushing 175 years of age and is believed to be the oldest creature in the world. She was hatched in 1830 and five years later she and two other tortoises were collected by Darwin from the Galapagos Islands and taken to England aboard his ship HMS Beagle.
The three, then named Tom, Dick 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 shipped out to Australia in 1842.
Dick died in the late 1880s 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.
The old girl now lives at the Australia Zoo in Queensland. Of the 15 sub-species of giant tortoise, some weighing more than 200kg, only 11 remain and it is expected more will become extinct.
Harriet has been outlived by three other tortoises who are now dead. She will celebrate her 175th birthday at the zoo on November 15.
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