Elderly animals

For many years, 0- VISIT[visitors] to a zoo in northern Australia

used to stop and stare at a giant Galapagos tortoise 1-NAME
named

Harriet. What was 2-REMARK

remarkable

about this tortoise

oldest

was that she was the world's 3-OLD

known living creature.
When she died in 2006, she had reached the age of a hundred and
seventy six.
It is believed this enormous tortoise was captured in the
Galapagos islands off the coast of Ecuador in the mid-1830s when
she was 4-SMALL
APPARENT

smaller

apparently

than a dinner plate. There she was 5-

studied by Charles Darwin while he was

evolution

working on his theory of 6-EVOLVE

The naturalist took
several young tortoises with him back to London, and many
experts believe that Harriet was among them. After this, she was
7-PROBABLE

probably

given to a naval officer who moved to

scientists

Australia. In the 1990s,8-SCIENCE

performed DNA tests
which show that this giant creature belonged to a subspecies of
tortoise found on an island that the British 9-EXPLORE
explorer

visited. When she died, she was the size of a dinner

table, and her 10-WEIGH

Submit

w eight

was one hundred and fifty kilos.