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