Very Old Animals
These animals have been marking time largely unaware of all the ups and downs and intrigues of humanity. And stories about them often have more to do with the way people perceive them than the animals themselves.
Research:
- Butler, Paul G. et al. “Variability of marine climate on the North Icelandic Shelf in a 1357-year proxy archive based on growth increments in the bivalve Arctica islandica.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. Volume 373, 2013. Pages 141-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.01.016.
- Barber, Elizabeth. “Scientists discover world's oldest clam, killing it in the process.” Christian Science Monitor. Nov. 15, 2013. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/1115/Scientists-discover-world-s-oldest-clam-killing-it-in-the-process
- Binns, Daniel. “Blungling Scientists Kill World’s Oldest Creature – a Clam – After 507 Years in Sea.” Metro UK. Nov. 13, 2013. https://metro.co.uk/2013/11/13/bungling-scientists-kill-worlds-oldest-creature-a-clam-after-507-years-in-sea-4185580/
- Brix, Lise. “New record: World’s oldest animal is 507 years old.” Science Nordic. Nov. 6, 2013. https://sciencenordic.com/ageing-denmark-geochemistry/new-record-worlds-oldest-animal-is-507-years-old/1392743
- Free, Cathy. “The world’s oldest living land animal? At age 190, it’s Jonathan the tortoise.” The Washington Post. January 30, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/01/31/oldest-animal-tortoise-jonathan-/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/01/31/oldest-animal-tortoise-jonathan-/
- “Daughter Scotches Churchill Parrot Claim.” BBC. Jan. 21, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/3417353.stm
- Elliot, Danielle. “Ming the Clam, World’s Oldest Animal, Was Actually 507 Years Old.” CBS News. Nov. 14, 2013. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ming-the-clam-worlds-oldest-animal-was-actually-507-years-old/
- Farrar, Steve. “Ming the Mollusk Holds Secret to Long Life.” The Times. October 28, 2007. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ming-the-mollusc-holds-secret-to-long-life-mfcvbtxl6gr
- Gamillo, Elizabeth. “At 190, Jonathan the Tortoise Is the World’s Oldest. Smithsonian. Feb. 4, 2022. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/at-190-jonathan-the-tortoise-is-the-worlds-oldest-living-land-animal-180979514/
- Holmes, Anna. “Meet Ming the Clam – the Oldest Animal in the World!” Amgueddfa Blog. Feb. 11, 2020. https://museum.wales/blog/2122/Meet-Ming-the-clam---the-oldest-animal-in-the-world/#:~:text=At%20507%20years%20the%20Ocean,together%20as%20a%20collective%20form.· “In A Flap Over 'Churchill's' Old Bird.” SkyNews. Jan. 20, 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20091204165346/http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641119993
- Kolirin, Lianne. “Meet 190-year-old Jonathan, the world’s oldest-ever tortoise.” CNN. Jan. 26, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/oldest-tortoise-jonathan-scli-intl-scn/index.html
- “Historic Tortoise.” The Jersey Journal. June 28, 1968. https://www.newspapers.com/image/908625184/?terms=%22tortoise%20st.%20helena%22%20&match=1
- “How are seashells made?” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/did-you-know/how-are-seashells-made
- “Jonathan at 140 Looks to the Future.” The Kansas City Times. Aug. 20, 1969. https://www.newspapers.com/image/675666450/?terms=%22tortoise%20st.%20helena%22%20&match=1
- Lyall, Sarah. “Reigate Journal; Parrot May Have Been Churchill's, but She's Not Saying.” New York Times. March 9, 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/09/world/reigate-journal-parrot-may-have-been-churchill-s-but-she-s-not-saying.html
- Madden, Chris. “Having a chat with Churchill's parrot and - at 114-years-old - one of Reigate's oldest residents.” Surrey Live. Aug. 26, 2014. https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/having-chat-churchills-parrot-114-13642592
- Triesman, Rachel. “Jonathan, the world’s oldest tortoise, marks his 190th with fanfare and salad cake.” NPR. Dec. 7, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/1141180557/jonathan-tortoise-birthday-190
- “Unique Distinction.” The Daily Times. Nov. 18, 1947. https://www.newspapers.com/image/303381370/?terms=%22tortoise%20st.%20helena%22%20&match=1
- “Jonathan’s 190th” St. Helena Tourism. https://www.sthelenatourism.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Jonathan-turns-190.pdf
- Larson, Samantha. “Oldest Clam Consternation Overblown.” National Geographic. Nov. 17, 2013. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/131116-oldest-clam-dead-ming-science-ocean-507?loggedin=true&rnd=1690833236811
- “Ming the clam is oldest mollusc.” BBC. Oct. 28, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7066389.stm
- Morelle, Rebecca. “Clam-gate: The Epic Saga of Ming.” BBC. Nov. 14, 2013. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24946983
- Wallenfeldt, Jeff. “History of Saint Helena.” Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Saint-Helena-island-South-Atlantic-Ocean/History
- “RIP Ming the Clam.” The Daily Telegraph.” October 29, 2007. https://www.newspapers.com/image/753409282/?terms=ming%20quahog&match=1
- Roach, John. “405-year-old Clam Called Longest-lived Animal.” National Geographic. October 29, 2007. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/405-year-old-clam-called-longest-lived-animal
- “Winston’s Obscene Parrot Lives On.” BBC. Jan. 19, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3410893.stm
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2023-08-07
36 min
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00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Holly here, listen. I have to apologize upfront for an error in today's show that happens multiple times, and it is all my fault. We in the first segment of this show talk about a tortoise who lives on Saint Helena Island. I very authoritatively said it's Saint Helena throughout the show, and Tracy followed suit because it was the one I researched. So instead of making our poor editor, Casey edit in a whole new version of it, since we did not catch this until the show was edited together, I'm just gonna make this humble apology and hope that you will forgive me. Every time you hear it, you can chuckle to yourself and note that I'm the reason it's wrong. Thanks. Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly from and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy, it's finally the lighter episode I've been meaning to do. I'm so happy for you. This one was actually really fun. There's some consternation that happens in the middle act that I find humorous because it's just in my opinion silly. I don't want to denigrate anyone who doesn't find it silly, but I have reasons we can discuss them in the behind the scenes. We're going to talk about very old animals today. Yeah, because a lot of these animals, and we say very old, we mean very old, very very old, all of them more than a hundred so much more. And I thought they would be interesting to talk about because they've been, you know, marking time, more or less unaware of all of the ups and downs and intrigues that humanity has been going through. And there's the stories that come out of this I found as I was researching, are really about the way we as humans perceive these animals and their importance or their iconic status. I just want to note that we have this sort of I don't know if I would call it bad luck. We have an uncanny repetition of events where we record a thing about something, and then within a week the circumstances of that thing change. Right, two of the animals we're talking about are still alive. So please, please, Universe, do not do anything to these animals because we have recorded this episode. I'm not that superstitious, but we really do have an uncanny number of those instances. One of them is already deceased, and it's death made people real mad. So that's what we're talking about today, very old animals and the way we think about them. So we're going to start with Jonathan the tortoise, who is one of the most famous animals on this list because he is, as of when we're recording this, still alive. He offers a link back through time, so a lot of events we have talked about on the show over the years. He's the oldest living land animal that we know of, and as of January twenty twenty two, also considered the oldest tortoise in history, again that we know of. Yeah, it's not like they're submitting their birth certificates or records to anyone, so there could be an older one out there that just hasn't been like, Hello, I too saw the war. Jonathan's hatch date is reported as somewhere around eighteen thirty two, although veterinarian Joe Hollins, who is his caretaker, has told news outlets that he thinks Jonathan could be even older, and the head of tourism for the island of Saint Helena just where he lives. That man is Matt Joshua, and he told CNN in twenty twenty two quote Jonathan could actually be two hundred because the information regarding his arrival on the island is not exact, and because there's no real record of his birth, So that hatch date of eighteen thirty two is a calculated guess based on when Jonathan first appears in the historical record, at which point he was already an adult, which would mean that he was at least fifty years old already. That appearance in the historical record is the moment that Jonathan, who had been captured in the Seychelles Island, which is where his species, the Seychelles giant tortoise is native to that moment he was captured and brought to the home of Sir William Gray Wilson as a gift. That happened in eighteen eighty two, So that eighteen thirty two date is just the result of subtracting fifty years from the date that the tortoise showed up as a gift. The record that denotes Jonathan's arrival is not any kind of official paperwork. It's just a letter that mentions him. There's also a photograph that shows Jonathan alongside several humans that was taken sometime between eighteen eighty two and eighteen eighty six, and it's clear in that photograph that the tortoise is full grown. So there's some additional supporting evidence here, not just the letter. Yeah, we didn't say so, but William Gray Wilson was the governor of Saint Helena at the time, and there's been some confusion and debate over the years over Jonathan's exact age. Throughout the mid twentieth century, there were a number of press mentions of a historic tortoise on Saint Helena that made an interesting boast. So one of these I found in the Jersey Journal, which was tagged as a dispatch from Saint Helena Island, and it read quote, A giant land tortoise in the gardens of Government House here is said to be the only creature alive that set eyes on Napoleon the Great General, paced the path of the gardens when in exile. Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled on Saint Helena. It is the second place he was exiled, and it was where he died in eighteen twenty one, so that is more than a decade before Jonathan is believed to have even been born, and it's more than sixty years before Jonathan arrived on Saint Helena. So it appears this is a case of a giant tortoise who was there. Jonathan is not the only one that's been a gift over the years. For a while it was kind of trendy to give giant tortoises his gifts. But it appears that there was one that was there when Napoleon was that is getting conflated or was at the time with Jonathan's story. A lot of newspapers reported this error as fact, although some of them seemed kind of tongue in cheek about it, like the Daily Times of Davenport, Iowa, which reported on the tortoise in a small blurb under the headline unique distinction in nineteen forty seven reads quote, according to a newspaper item, there is a tortoise at Saint Helena who probably saw Napoleon, and I might surmise is the only one who hasn't written a book about it. Saint Helena is part of the larger British Overseas territory known as Saint Helena Ascension and Tristan d'acuna. It's a tropical island in the South Atlantic that sits twenty five hundred miles east of Rio di Janio and twelve hundred miles west of Angola. It's remote and it's recorded as having been uninhabited when it was discovered on the feast day of Saint Helena May twenty first, in fifteen oh two by Spanish explorer Juau de Nova. That exact date is also contested, because it's likely that it was actually discovered several weeks earlier. There's some supporting documentation that hints at an earlier May date and that the reported date was selected to align with the name that they chose. But because of its isolated position in the Southern Atlantic, it stayed the exclusive knowledge of Portugal, for whom De Nova had been working when he found it, for a while. It took more than eighty years for English navigator Thomas Cavendish to land there after that once England knew about Saint Helena, all of Europe kind of did, and it became essentially a port island. Its position made it a really good stopping point for ships on long voyages. The occupation of the island was claimed alternately by British and Dutch interests, but by the end of the seventeenth century it was property of the British East India Company. For roughly one hundred and fifty years. After that, its population was split almost evenly between administrators of the British East India Company and their families and their enslaved workforce. Slavery was phased out on the island during the eighteen twenties and thirties and the two hundred years since then. The island has continued to be a British territory, but it has gained some degree of self governance relateationship that has continued to evolve into the twenty first century. The island has retained a small community. Only about forty four hundred people live there, but despite the fact that it is pretty hard to get there, even with a relatively new airport that opened in twenty sixteen, it's a tourism destination. It's beautiful and it has Jonathan. You can visit him. He's on my list. Jonathan is a Chelonian, meaning that he is in the order that includes tortoises, turtles, and terrapins. He is a Seychell's giant tortoise. As we said earlier, that's an animal that was actually used as a food source for a lot of years. Their own physiology was what made them so sought after for that reason. Not only have people found the meat from giant tortoises tasty, but their shells have made them easy to stack and store, particularly on sea voyages. And because they were so commonly eaten for so long, Jonathan is one of very few left. But he may be a specific subspecies of Seychelle's tortoise. There are several such subspecies, some of which were thought to be extinct and now were like maybe not, And as of a year ago, there had not been a conclusive determination regarding Jonathan and where he fits into the Chelonian order. Jonathan today lives what sounds like a pretty great life. He eats cabbage, carrots, apples, and bananas, as well as other plants and produce. Apparently, though he does not like kale. His sense of smell is gone and he's blind. He can still hear, though, and he's pretty sociable. He's very well cared for and seems to be still full of life. His weight is uncertain. There's not really an easy way to weigh him on the island. According to his keeper, Jonathan is still very interested in mating, and he has frequent rendezvous with two of the other tortoises on the island. Those are Emma and Fred. Fred incidentally was originally called Frederica and believed to be female when the two were first introduced in the nineteen nineties. It wasn't until twenty seventeen, when Fred had a veterinary procedure, that they realized that he was male. Jonathan gets regular baths from Joe Hollins and his hand fed, although Hollins has to wear welding gloves to do this because Jonathan's beak is very sharp. Could not be comfortable. He could do a lot of damage if he clamped down on someone's finger. Yeah, and uh again, he's blind, so there's not necessarily he sayesn't have vision to help him go after food, so the odds of a clamp on a finger are high. I think Hollins has mentioned he's lost a couple fingernails over the years. Jonathan is part of a diverse group of animals that are kept on the island. Of Saint Helena, and he's been a tourist attraction for a long time. In recent years, though, more rules have been instated to optimize Jonathan's health and ensure that he is not unduly stressed by all of his visitors and fans. For example, it was once allowed quite a number of years back for kids to sit on his back for photos. They don't allow that anymore, and now there is apparently pretty careful management of his interactions when tour groups come through, because they can get a little bit raucous. In the decades that Jonathan has wandered within the grounds of the Saint Helena Governor's House, he has not always thrived. In the late nineteen sixties, he was reportedly having some behavioral issues. An article that circulated in various papers read quote, A protester has been disrupting the easy going routine of civilized colonial life on the island of Saint Helena, the British possession in the South Atlantic. Jonathan is the name, and Jonathan likes to upend benches beside the British Governor's tennis courts and halt croquet games by sitting on the ball. Ordinarily, the Governor of the island not be expected to tolerate such boorish behavior. But Jonathan is special. I just the language of civilized life. I don't I don't love that. I initially included an insert that just said grown in this copy. So this article continues by telling Jonathan's story and that he's one hundred and forty and that quote. The governor decided the turtle was simply trying to let people know that he had had enough of the lonely life. Jonathan's mate met with an untimely death one hundred years ago when she sauntered off a cliff. To remedy this problem, the governor ordered additional tortoises to keep Jonathan company. We're gonna pause for a quick sponsor break, and then we'll talk about some modern efforts to improve Jonathan's health and well being. When Hollins was initially hired to be Jonathan's veterinarian and caretaker, the elderly tortoise had a number of health issues, which were all traced back to nutrition deficiencies. With a change in diet to include more fresh fruits and vegetables, he bounced back and regained his health. You can read stories about how his beak was kind of crumbly, the nature of it was not very strong, and that it has really regrown and come back quite well. He does sometimes give visitors a scare that he has passed because apparently Jonathan likes to sunbathe sprawling with his limbs and neck outstretched. Hollins also conducted a thorough review of the environment and protocols related to the care of the island's tortoises to make changes that would maximize the quality of life for Jonathan and his tortoise friends. Hollins told The Washington Post in twenty twenty two quote, Jonathan is symbolic of persistence, endurance, and survival and has achieved iconic status on the island. Got a lot of news coverage in twenty twenty two because Saint Helena had a huge one hundred and ninetieth birthday for him. They asked fans of Jonathan to send in video greetings wishing him happy birthday and any photos that tourists may have taken with him. This was all to be included in a celebration package for the event. He also got a cake made of salad as part of this three day long party. As part of the promotion for Jonathan's Big Day, the island's tourism pamphlet about the festivities noted just how much the world has changed while Jonathan has been living out his days there. Quote, he has watched more than thirty governors come and go from plantation house, watch the island introduce radios, telephones, TVs, internet, cars, and an airport. He has lived through two World wars. NPR's coverage of the Big birthdaytion dig also contextualized Jonathan's life on the historical timeline with some additional data points. They noted, quote, He's lived through two World Wars, eight British monarchs, and forty US presidents. His lifetime has seen the first phone call eighteen seventy six, the first skyscraper eighteen eighty five, the first power driven flight nineteen oh three, the first people to walk on the moon nineteen sixty nine. He was alive when the first photograph of a person was taken eighteen thirty eight. Now he poses for selfies with adoring tourists. He was born before the creation of the postage stamp eighteen forty and now appears on them. He's had the distinction of having met Queen Elizabeth the second back when she was Princess Elizabeth. Yeah, that was in the nineteen forties. So that is Jonathan. Happy belated birthday, Jonathan. We hope you have many more. The second oldest Chillonian on record, just incidentally, was a Madagascar radiated tortoise named tul Malila, who died at the ripled age of one hundred eighty eight in nineteen sixty five. Like Jonathan, he had been a gift, this time from Captain James Cook to the Royal family of Tonga in the late seventeen hundreds. Moving on, in two thousand and six, a team of researchers from Bangor University of Wales collected a number of Arctica islandica, also known as ocean cohogs more casually just called clams, that was off the northern coast of Iceland. These cohogs come from a seabed that was two hundred and sixty two feet or eighty meters deep. The research project that the clams were part of was mounted to study the history of the oceans in relation to climate and the science of aging, because these clams are known to live for a really long time. As part of the collection process, the clams were frozen and opened, which kills them, and then the shells were removed for study. So here is a very quick and non thorough rundown of clam anatomy and why the shell is important. Clams are bivalve molluscs. Their shells protect the soft muscles and the organs inside, and those insides are actually pretty simple, but they're also very efficient. There's a hinge ligament that keeps the two shell pieces together and able to open, but there's also an adductor muscle that keeps the shell closed unless they need a little gap. There are gills for filter feeding and gas exchange. There's a heart, and there's also a muscular foot that extends out from between the shells to burrow into the sea bed. And those shells are made of calcium carbonate. The mantle, or outermost layer of the muscle secretes proteins and minerals that create a framework for the shell, which the calcium carbonate binds too as it is released. Anytime the animal grows, the outermost edge of the shell extends, and as each growth cycle completes, a ring is formed. So counting those rings enables scientists to gauge the age of the cohog. Because some rings may be only subtly different from those adjacent to them, it's really necessary to look at these rings quite close, thus the removal of the shells. So why are we walking through all of this? Well, when the Banger team started studying the shell samples they collected back in the lab, they discovered that one of the coohog they had found was four hundred and five years old. So the headlines that followed this called this the world's longest lived animal. Researchers named this ko hoog Ming because it had been born when the Ming dynasty ruled China. This was a record breaking age. The oldest animal title had officially been held for two dozen years by another clam listed in the Guinness Book of World Records is two hundred and twenty years old. But there was also another that wasn't in the Guinness Book, and that was one that was part of a collection of a German museum whose age was claimed to have been three hundred and seventy four when it was harvested. When The Times of London wrote about this discovery, it opened with quote, a clam dredged alive from the bottom of the North Atlantic has been identified by scientists as the longest living animal ever known. Unfortunately, by the time its true age had been established, the three point four inch clam was already dead, but the British scientists who discovered it believed it could yield valuable information to help research into aging. The Times went on to explain that the team had received a forty thousand pound grant to use their finding and aging related work by the charity group helped the aged. In an interview with the BBC that published on October twenty eight, two thousand seven, Chris Richardson, a professor from Bangor University, explained, quote what's intriguing the Bangor group as how these animals have actually managed an effect to escape senescence that's growing old. One of the reasons we think is that the animals have got some difference in cell turnover rates we would associate with much shorter lived animals. He also explained how their work might map out the history of climate as it occurred during Ming's lifetime, saying, quote the growth increments themselves provide a record of how the animal has varied in its growth rate from year to year, and that varies according to climate, seawater temperature, and food supply, and so by looking at these mollusks, we can reconstruct the environment that animals grew in. They are like tiny tape recorders, in effect, sitting on the seabed and integrating signals about water, temperature and food over time. Almost as soon as the news went public of this record breaking cohog, there was public outcry. People were angry that Ming had been killed as part of the research. The research team had explained in interviews and press releases that studying these clams could help humans understand the process of aging much more deeply in a way that could benefit humans. They had also stated that another goal of their ongoing work was to look at the last century of climate as it was reflected in these samples, and then see if there was a significant difference to patterns of climate in the centuries that preceded it. But some people seem to think that the scientists had killed Ming knowing it was more than four hundred because they wanted to study it further. That was completely incorrect. They had not been able to determine the cohog's age until after it was killed. The research group had no reason to think any of the collected clams were extraordinary. The Daily Telegraph of London ran an obituary for Ming, noting that it had grown from a larva when Queen Elizabeth I was still on the throne. This oh bit noted the various historical events that the clam had lived through, including the Gunpowder Plot, the Glorious Revolution. Also noted that by being an ocean floor dweller, Ming had been spared more unpleasant events like the Potato famine, the plague, and World War two. On a completely different note of Curtis's some questions arose about whether Ming could really be considered the oldest animal ever discovered, because there are coral that are older, but coral is made up of multiple individual corals that grow together to form the larger hole. So to sidestep any confusion and to clarify the claim, researchers started qualifying the superlative by saying that Ming was the oldest non colonial animal, not having anything to do with any colonialism, just colonies of animals. In twenty thirteen, there was a recount. Really this was an additional examination of Ming's shell, but researchers did once again count the bivalves rings, this time using more advanced methods than had been available previously. This time they discovered that Ming was a lot older than they previously calculated five hundred and seven. That would make Ming thirty four when Queen Elizabeth the First was born. Also, a contemporary of figures like Christopher Columbus Leonardo da Vinci would have been painting the Mona Lisa at the time. The team published their findings from this seven year project in the periodical paleo Geography, Paleoclimatology paleo Ecology in March twenty thirteen. That was in a paper titled variability of marine climate on the North Atlantic Shelf in a thirteen fifty seven year proxy archive based on growth increments in the bivalve Arctica Islandica. This paper details the historical ocean record that has been established through this study and notes that shells offer a unique opportunity to create such a record, and it describes their sample collection from seven years earlier quote live specimens, dead articulated shells and dead single shell valves of a Islandica were collected from the seabed during a cruise of the research vessel Bjarnie Simonson in June two thousand. The collection site of the shells used in this study was west of the island of Grimsey in a water depth of eighty one to eighty three meters. Live specimens were frozen on board and thought and processed after return to the laboratory. So despite having explained the methods used to cross all the specimens in the study, people were ready to be angry over this mollusk's death. We'll talk about the second wave of outrage after we hear from the sponsors that keep stuffiness in history class going. Almost immediately after the team published their paper, news stories once again came out suggesting wrongdoing on the part of the research team, and it ignored the established information that they had not known they had such an old living specimen on board at the time that they collected and froze them. The Metro UK tabloid ran a story on November thirteenth of twenty thirteen under the headline Bungling scientists kill world's oldest creature, a clam after five hundred seven years in c Oddly, this otherwise misleading article includes an actual quote from one of the researchers regarding the usefulness of the work that the study was doing regarding the science of aging. The Christian Science Monitor covered the story two days later with the headline Scientists discover world's oldest clam, killing it in the process, and this particular article also emphasized the clam's death, stating, but that is as old as ming will ever get. CBS News wrote of the work the team was doing, quote either way ming an arctica ilandica, bivalve mollusc or ocean cohog is still dead and he could have been saved if they just counted the outside growth rings instead of the rings along the interior hingeley ligament. An interview given to Science Nordic before this article ran, which that CBS News story references, had explained why the interior was the best bet. At the time of that first count, the hinge ligaments offered the best and most accurate information. They're not getting dinged around by other stuff in the ocean. Marine biologist Rob Whitbard told Science Nordic, quote the age has been confirmed with a variety of methods, including geochemical methods such as the carbon fourteen method, so I am very confident that they have now determined the right age. If there is any error, it can be only one or two years. Just a day after this tabloid story, the BBC ran one titled Clamgate, The Epic Saga of Ming, which walked readers through the initial discovery, the revision of the known age of the clam, and the level to which this entire story was misunderstood. Research or mention that the team had gotten emails calling them clam murderers. But in that interview with the BBC that ran in November twenty thirteen, the research team pointed out that there was a double standard that their work faced amid the negative reactions, noting that quote, the same species of clam are caught commercially and eaten daily. Anyone who has eaten clam chowder in New England has probably eaten flesh from this species, many of which are likely several hundred years old. Additionally, the chances are that there is an even older mollusk out there somewhere. Once these clams reach a certain age, they don't grow all that much each year, so a five hundred year old clam is not that different in size from a two hundred year old one, So it would be very easy to pick up one that is much much older, not know it and put it in chowder. You can now see ming for yourself if you wish, at the National Museum, Cardiff, where its story and the science associated with it are integrated into the museum's Insight Gallery. Our last entry in this episode is short, but Holly was very tickled by it. This features a very old bird who is, as of when we are recording, still alive, a blue and gold macaw named Charlie. Charlie is believed to have hatched in eighteen ninety nine, so she's one hundred and twenty three or one hundred and twenty four, and she's known as Charlie the Cursor, sometimes also described as Winston Churchill's parrot, but that is contested. In January two thousand and four, the Daily Mirror, so Yes, another tabloid, ran a very colorful story about Charlie catapulting her onto the international stage. I could not get my hands on that original article, but in it all of the information was repeated in many other places. The claim was made that Charlie routinely uttered the phrases blank Hitler and blank Nazis, and she had been taught those phrases with the word blank being replaced to an expletive by none other than her former owner, Sir Winston Churchill, and that when she said these things, she sounded exactly like Churchill and Charlie's owner, a man named Peter Orum, stood by this claim and told news outlets repeatedly that his father in law, Percy Dabner, was a well known dealer in birds and sold Charlie to the Prime Minister in nineteen thirty seven, and that then, when Churchill died in nineteen sixty five, Charlie was returned to the Croydon pet shop she had come from. Today she's part of Heathfield Nurseries, which is owned by Orum, and employees of the nursery have also gone on record repeating that same story. Here is the problem. Churchill's country estate, known as Chartwell, is now part of the National Trust, and as such it has a staff that retains the historical records of the property and the Prime Minister's time there, and they have found no evidence. Despite a lot of digging, it sounds like that Charlie was ever Winston Churchill's bird. The New York Times did some digging into the matter and spoke with Judith Seaward, who worked at Chartwell and was its marketing manager and head of visitor services at the time. Her statement to the press was this quote, Sir Winston had a variety of livestock and once owned a budgeregard that's a budgy if any of you have like pet birds. I didn't recognize it as a budge by the word. He also had a completely different kind of parrot some years previously. But Lady Solmes is absolutely certain that this macaw was not her father's Seaward also of the possibility it seemed kind of like a peacemaking move that the macaw might have belonged to someone on staff at Chartwell rather than Churchill the Lady Solmes. The reference to there was, as the quote indicated, Churchill's daughter, the author, Mary Solmes. She told the BBC in two thousand and four quote, for the war, we did have an African gray for about three years, but that's quite quite different from a macaw. It's smaller or more compact, with a sort of red face. It never came to London. It may well have gone back for all I know, to the person my father got it from. But it was the end of the parrot's relationship with my father. So by her account, there was not a bird in the Churchill household while her father was Prime Minister, definitely none that he kept until his death. She also gave her opinion on the claim that her father might have taught a bird to curse Nazis, saying it was quote too tiresome for words. And although the Mirror claimed that Charlie was famed for cursing in front of visitors, there's no actual evidence of the bird cursing at all, other than people's words. Charlie has been visited by various journalists over the years, hoping to catch a recording of her famously inappropriate language. I think the most recent when I found was from twenty fourteen. But she seems to mostly just give a croaky squawk. She is a very mature lady, and say just a few benign words, including hello and goodbye. Uh. We accidentally have a theme in what we're recording this week, because the next thing we're going to record also has a lot of things that it's like different people are different publications reporting the same in accurate thing. Yeah, ooof the old animals. Okay, my first listener email is from our listener Holly Frye, who has a correction. It's a minor correction and it's actually kind of a like, Ah, I'm not sure. I think it was in the behind the scenes that I mentioned that Thomas Hicks, who was the winner of the nineteen oh four Olympic Marathon despite having been poisoned, didn't run again to the best of my knowledge, Like I had seen a mention of him where it was like he did not do any more running after that. But then I was just reviewing stuff recently that I had had in relation to that episode to make sure I hadn't missed any in the sources list, and I saw a thing from Runners World, and that suggested that he did keep running for a while and then moved to Canada. But I didn't find backup on that either, So just FYI, I may have made a false statement about his running career. And then I have a listener mail from our listener Anna, but she mentioned something that I believe we have talked about on the show. It's also related to the marathon. Anna writes, thank you for so many wonderful episodes, the excellent nineteen oh four marathon one inspired me to mention the delightful coverage of the nineteen twelve Stockholm Olympics in the Jim Thorpe bio path Lit by Lightning. I think you mentioned that when we talked about Jim Thorpe, or you used it, but I'm not positive. I don't immediately recall author author David Moranis includes the exagger and poor performance of rich kid Georges Payton to modern pentathlon, such a weird event, including being dosed with opium before the four thousand meter run. Have a great day. I don't have any cats, so I'm including a photo of the kittens my friend Area is currently fostering. Kitten pictures are like weapons grade cute to me. I'm powerless in front of them. Thank you so much. Anna. It is really really interesting when you start looking back at Olympic sports and I know it's still an issue where you know, doping is still something that's constantly a concern and investigated, But like I just I don't know, uh, you know, the idea that opium and strych nine would be performance and answers continues to blow my mind. So I just every time I think about it, it's like my brain has like this clicking thing where it can't quite reset because it just seems so wrong. I know, well, poison people. That'll make them run faster some excuse. Yes, if you would like to write to us, especially if you have foster kit pictures, but you don't have to, you could do that at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on the internet on all of the social media's as Missed in History And if you have not subscribed to the podcast but you think that might be a fun thing to do, you can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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