Darwin’s Tortoise

Harriet, a Galapagos tortoise, was believed to have been one of three tortoises taken from the Galapagos Islands by Charles Darwin, on his historic 1835 voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. The 176-year-old tortoise, believed to be one of the world’s oldest living creatures, died in an Australian zoo in 2006. According to local legend, Harriet was just five years old, and probably no bigger than a dinner plate, when she was taken from the Galapagos to Britain. The tortoise spent a few years in Britain, before being moved to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, in Australia’s tropical Queensland state in the mid-1800.