Harriet, a giant Galapagos tortoise who may have been raised by Charles Darwin, is 175 years old, a testimony to Darwin's survival of the fittest theory.
Harriet, who is being cared for in Australia, is believed to have been hatched when Britain's Queen Victoria was a teenager, reports The Times of London. The tortoise's Australian handlers believe Darwin plucked her from obscurity in 1835, which would make her the oldest creature walking the planet.
While a British micro-paleontologist thinks she was picked up by whalers for fresh meat, other support the more exotic theory is the claim that Harriet was one of four giant tortoises collected by Darwin's expedition to the Galapagos in 1835. The four were loaded on a boat, reaching Plymouth in 1836. Two died but Harriet and the fourth reptile was shipped to Australia in 1841. The fourth died in 1929. Whatever her bona fides and antecedents, no one doubts her age, with the most conservative estimate placing it at 170.
So, Happy 170th (or 175th birthday), Harriet.
