Oldest Living Creature at 175. Harriet the Tortoise.
 

"Harriet the tortoise is 175 years old and the size of a dinner table, and still going strong.

Harriet hatched on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador in the year of 1830! She weighs in at over 300 pounds and takes sluggish steps around her home at Stever Irwin’s Zoo in Australia.

To put her age in perspective, she was already 35 years old when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865."
Source: With picture of the huge tortoise

I think this is pretty sweet. It's the longest living creature "that has records" but there are probably older creatures in the Ocean and such. Not sure.

Stuff like this has always managed to intrigue me. I had no idea anything could live to be that old. She looks really awesome. :)

That is one HUGE tortoise. I remember reading this story a little while back.

Tortoises have a long lifespan, since they take life with calm ;) .
Though, they aren't the oldest living creatures. The oldest living animals maybe, but there are millenary olive trees alive & kicking.

I'm curious how we know its age for sure. From what I know, scientists have a great deal of trouble studying tortoises because the tortoises live so much longer than the scientists. It's due to this that we don't actually know how long a tortoise can live. We just have estimates.

Go, Harriet! Try for 350!

Since when the fuck were olive trees "creatures"? Unless you are using the literal meaning of "something that is created", but then we're talking about rocks and planets and stars and shit.

The oldest known tree is about 4,700 years-old (in California) and there is a bush that is like 12,000 years-old.

Behold! The power of the Internet! If I were superstitious I would feel sorry for my participation in this thread...

wow...that sure was quick wasnt it?

Sorry Harriet.. I didn't think you'd have a heart attack with all this press you were getting. I guess i was wrong.

that timing was perfect though...

This thread made me think of the famous "Mike the Headless Chicken" and I'm not sure why...

You inspire me, Harriet and Mike!

It's sad that she died, but at least she made it past her 175th birthday. It would have been worse if she died just before then.

Well, if I am not mistaken, they picked her up when she hatched. But of course that is all over the news now ...

interesting information i read: For many years she was though of as being a "he", and the latest DNA checks revealed that it's probably not Darwin's pet at all to begin with.

Well, I think its pretty cool she lived till 175. I wish I could live that long. But then again.... I would probably have nothing better to do above age 100, as may have been the case for her.

I read in the paper today about a tortoise, who is 85 years old and the last one known of his species. They put a reward for anyone who can spot a female of the same species. I wish I could remember what species he was.

I hope they find one for him.

At the very least, they could find some mate for him, creating a hybrid tortoise that will pass the genetics of that species on through the rest of time, even though posterity will eventually have an infinitesimal trace of this breed.

Of course, there is the cloning/gene manipulation option. We could, theoretically, make an artifical female tortoise of that breed for him to mate with. But, then again, there's no telling how stable either the female or the offspring would be.