Turtle dies

[Fig]

Turtles, as we all know, are very long-lived - among the Earth's longest-lived creatures.

But it's one thing to know that theoretically.

It's another to have it bluntly demonstrated, as the Indian turtle, Addwaitya, just did.

Addwaitya died this week. We don't know precisely when he was born. We do know, however, that he was given as a gift.

Ìn 1774.

That, for those of you keeping track at home, means that Addwaitya was born in a world that had such people as Georges Washington living in it.

Source :

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/03/250yearold_tort.html

 

[Barb]

Giant tortoises can live for 150 years. What really gets me are the giant sequoia trees that have been around for 3,000 years.

 

[Zhen Lin]

Oh, those plants. They don't seem to ever die of natural causes.

 

[Murgatroyd]

Giant tortoises can live for 150 years. What really gets me are the giant sequoia trees that have been around for 3,000 years.

A giant sequoia, standing tall and nearly indestructable, is one thing. Even more impressive are the bristlecone pines, where it's the scrawny, twisted ones out where nothing has any right to be alive that are the oldest plants in the world.

 

[Barb]

Bristlecone pines outlive sequoias by about 1,000 years, I believe.

 

[Crimson Flames]

Holy crap! That turtle was over 232 years old (remember it was alive pre-1774). That's just amazing that it lived that much longer than turtles can usually live.

 

[Fig]

Most estimates actually put him at 250 years or so.

The zoo officials are planning to use carbon-dating to find out how old exactly. That, for thsoe of you keeping track at home, is how they date dinosaurs bones and ancient artifacts.

 

[Zhen Lin]

Wouldn't it be funny if the carbon dating puts it at around 0±5 years old? Because, carbon dating, as we all know, measures the amount of carbon-14 in an artifact relative to the level of carbon-14 on average in the environment. The problem is: when a plant is alive, it is constantly exchanging carbon-14 with the environment, and since animals eat plants, animals also constantly exchange carbon-14 with the environment. This means - as long as a plant or animal is alive, the level of carbon-14 would remain the same. Therefore, carbon dating is only effective from the time the plant or animal stops exchanging carbon-14 with the environment - i.e. when it dies.

 

[The Big Al]

Actually, they don't use Carbon 14 to date dinosaur bones. They use an Argon istobe because Carbon 14 disappears too quickly (I think it's only good for a couple hundred thousand years).

Wow, that was a long lived turtle. I've heard some species of tortoise live to be a thousand years. I account it to a lack of stress. Seriously, have you ever since a stressed out turtle?

 

[Krucifier]

wow old turtle........