We love history, we can't help it; and the science that walks alongside.This article introduces you to some nice animals, who live longer than anyone: the Galapagos turtles .
An archipelago full of turtles
In 1535 Fray Tomas de Berlanga headed from Panama-where he was bishop-to Peru with the mission, ordered by Carlos V , to act as an intermediary between Pizarro and his men, who had entered into conflict shortly after the conquest of the Inca Empire.
However, bad weather and currents were diverting and took him to the accidental discovery of an archipelago, which the Galapagos baptized, for the amount of turtles they found living peacefully in it.
Then, as used to happen in those times of conquest, the process of extinction of the and local species.
One of pirates
Before the end of the XVI century the Galapagos they became English pirate shelters that attacked Spanish ships, the first being Richard Hawkins, in 1593.Later, in the 19th century, it was a supplying place for fishing boats and whalers, which turned the capture of the galapagos turtles and their eggs in a relatively easy activity and that entails an exploitation estimated between one hundred and three hundred thousand copies and the disappearance of four of the fifteen species , until it began to be protected, in the mid-twentieth century.
The largest turtle in the world
A Despite the rate of exploitation when Darwin passed through the islands, in 1835, there were still fifteen species of this turtle, the largest in the world, as it grows to a meter twenty and weigh about two hundred and fifty kilograms, size and weight that they reach thanks to the fact that they are also the longest vertebrate animals on Earth, living more than one hundred and seventy years, and there are those who speak of two hundred and fifty.
A turtle named Harry, or Harriet
Let's look at some cases: in 1965 Tu'i Malila died, with 188 years; In 2006, Solitaire Jorge died, with more than one hundred years, and in 2006 Adwaita died, supposedly with 255 years (it has not been confirmed if he really was his age), and Harriet, with 176 years.
Harriet's is a curious case, it was believed that it had been captured by Darwin, but in recent years it was found that it was not so, although it had to be born five years before the scientist's visit to the Galapagos.The other “detail” is that He spent a hundred years calling himself Harry, until they realized that he was female, that is, Harriet.
Nowadays these turtles, as well as the archipelago they are named, are under the protection of the government Ecuadorian and are the natural world heritage of humanity.
Do you know of any other animal as old as this?
Images: Matthias Lambrecht
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