255 Year Old Tortoise has died in Indian zoo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060323/sc_afp/indiawildlifetortoise_060323102819

KOLKATA, India (AFP) - Zoo officials in Kolkata have said that a famed 255-year-old tortoise brought to the eastern Indian city during the rule of the British East India Company has died.

The giant Aldabra tortoise was one of four brought by British seamen from the Seychelles Islands as gifts to Robert Clive of the East India Company in 1875. It died after a string of illnesses, Kolkata Zoo director Subir Chowdhury told AFP Thursday.


"Adwaitya spent his early days in Robert Clive's garden," the zookeeper said. He was later transferred to the Alipore zoo, located in the city's southern district, after it opened in 1875.

"Our records show the tortoise was born in 1750, but some have claimed he was born in 1705," he said. He added that the zoo will use a scientific method known as carbon-dating to determine his real age.

Most of the tortoises are found on Aldabra, an atoll of four large coral islands in the Indian Ocean. The atoll has been protected from human influence and is home to some 152,000 giant tortoises, the world's largest population of the animal, according to the United Nations world heritage body.

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