[extropy-chat] Addwaita:250 years is a long time.

[Joao Magalhaes]

I should point out that there is no way anyone can confirm this particular 
longevity record, which makes it anecdotal and even suspicious.

For really long-lived species, please see our AnAge database:

http://genomics.senescence.info/species/query.php?show=1&sort=4&page=1

Some trees and sponges appear to live thousands of years.

Cheers,

Joao

At 09:27 PM 25/3/2006, you wrote:
>Addwaita died this week, Addwaita was  a tortoise who lived in the
>Calcutta zoo.
>
>He was brought by a British ship to  India and given to the british
>governor-general in 1767.
>
>He was given to the Calcutta zoo in 1867, when the zoo commenced operations.
>
>When Ifirst saw the obituary, it did not really register, except as
>another whimisical story.
>
>Then I began to think about it.
>
>This tortoise was collected 50 years before Darwin was born, and before
>the germ theory of disease was promulgated. The news stories do not tell
>us which British ship collected him, but he was collected in the era of
>Captain Cook.. On his voyage to India, he probably survived on salt
>pork, biscuit, and grog. He survived in captivity for over 200 years,
>during which he was cared for by a succession of keepers whose
>scientific knowledge was absmal by today's standards.
>
>Addwaita is not by any mans the oldest living creature in captivity.
>Some of the Bonsai on the Japanese imperial collection are 750 years old.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

---

Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, PhD

Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Genetics
77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Room 238
Boston, MA 02115
Telephone: 1-617-432-6512

http://www.senescence.info