Harriet (tortoise)

Harriet (* 1830 in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador; † 23 June 2006 at the Australia Zoo, Queensland, Australia) - up to 1960 Harry - was a 180 -pound Galapagos giant tortoise. She belonged to the subspecies Geochelone nigra porteri and was about 175 years old.

Since the 1990s, the Australia Zoo, where the turtle last lived, spread the story that it was at one of the Harriet in 1835 by Charles Darwin captured in the Galapagos Islands and brought to England turtles. 1841 to have been brought into the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens in Brisbane and lived there until the closure of the botanical garden in 1952. Then she was taken to a nature reserve on Australia's Sunshine Coast in the luggage of a British officer. A zoo director from Hawaii will have until 1960 found that Harriet was a female.

The Aufsammlung this Turtle by Charles Darwin nevertheless seems highly unlikely, since Harriet could be identified on the basis of mitochondrial DNA as Geochelone nigra clearly porteri. This subspecies is only found on Santa Cruz - an island in the Galapagos Islands, Darwin has never set foot. But could be confirmed the high age of the turtle, which must be hatched, according to the scientific study before 1850.

Harriet died on 23 June 2006 of heart failure.