The Oldest Animal in the World: A Clam
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 10.30.07
Beating out other perennial favorites such as Harriet, the Galapagos land tortoise - who, before she passed away at a little over 175 years, seemed almost sprightly by comparison - an ocean quahog clam, affectionately named "Ming" (after the Chinese dynasty in power when it was born), has laid claim to the vaunted title of "world's longest-lived animal". Clocking in at around 405 years, Ming was plucked off the seafloor near Iceland's north coast by a team of researchers from Wales' Bangor University.
The clam was apparently still alive when the scientists initially dredged it up - to date it, however, they were forced to cut through the shell to count the growth rings. Acknowledging the sad irony, the scientists expressed hope that they could glean information about long-livelihood and senescence - the process of growing old - from the diminutive mollusc.
The official record for longest-lived animal, as determined by the Guinness Book of Records, had been previously held by a (wait for it) clam, discovered in 1982 aged 220. Unofficially, however, an even older clam - aged around 374 - was found by the Bangor team a few years ago.
Chris Richardson, a professor in the School of Ocean Sciences, is also hoping to use the clam as a proxy for studying past climate regimes and to make some predictions about the future impact of global warming.
"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, sea-water temperature and food supply. And so by looking at these molluscs we can reconstruct the environment the animals grew in. They are like tiny tape-recorders, in effect, sitting on the sea-bed and integrating signals about water temperature and food over time," he explained.
Yes, all of this from just one clam.
Via ::BBC News: Ming the clam is 'oldest animal' (news website), ::Guardian Unlimited: Clam claims oldest animal record (news website)
See also: ::Oldest Newspaper In The World To Stop Killing Trees, ::Resurrecting Life in the "Valleys of the Dead"
Image courtesy of clpo13 via flickr
There is no contest between Harriet and this clam. Harriet is in fact dead already - she died more than a year ago in the late Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo at the tender age of 175.
It's gotta be a strange thing to sit in the mud for 400 years. Boy, if the sea floor could talk...
It's sad that this story reminds me of the Prometheus tree.
Am I the only one who is more than a little disturbed that they find the oldest living animal in the world and then kill it?
Scientists are morons, sometimes.
Scientists always reluctantly admit they have to cut up/kill/dissect whatever interests them. Japanese scientists are forced to hunt whales well over the quota for research reasons and there are few extinction threatened larger animals that are not fitted with satellite tracking devices. I would like to se the same treatment done to would-be researchers (gadget fitting, NOT killing...) as an educational routine.
I'm slightly angered that they killed the oldest living animal on the planet, how can anyone else not be?!?
It doesn't lessen the tradgedy - but apparently some commenters failed to read the story before commenting; the researchers found out how old the clam was AFTER killing it.
I think you all are missing an important point - they didn't know its age until they disected its shell to date it. Apparently unlike a tree (where you can core it, count it, and keep it alive), a clam won't survive an accounting of its age.
Its a sad irony that the oldest known living creature had to be killed just to find that out, but the catch-22 goes the other way, too. If they hadn't figured out its age it would have been just another clam in the big ocean.
I think thats stupid they probly ate it then relized the rings lmao thats the world we live in i guess. I can't get over it lol it lived that long then we had to be dumb and go kill it maybe the clam was happy to finaly die. lmao what would u due if u lived that long???
Yes...but how is it in chowder?
I am angered to.They teach cause and effect but don't practice it. Who knows that could throw every thing off and end the world.