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

[Dan Clemmensen]

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.