No one knows exactly when Gramma the Galápagos tortoise was born on that volcanic chain of Pacific islands. What is clear, though, is that she lived through the fall of empires, two world wars, and the tenure of more than 20 U.S. presidents. If the estimated birth year of 1884 is accurate, Chester Arthur occupied the Oval Office and there were only 39 states at the time.
It was also the year the Washington Monument was finished, the Statue of Liberty's pedestal cornerstone was set, and the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary appeared. Queen Victoria still ruled Britain. A line running through Greenwich, England, was established as the prime meridian — the zero degree longitude mark that regularized nautical charts and time zones.
Gramma, who lived for a century at the San Diego Zoo, died Thursday at 141 — give or take, "with her family of wildlife care specialists by her side," the zoo said in a statement to NPR. "She was being expertly supported for ongoing conditions related to her age, and wildlife health and care teams made the difficult and compassionate decision to say goodbye."
Gramma was a fixture and a favorite at the zoo after arriving there circa 1928 from the Bronx Zoo in New York after being taken from the Galápagos.
It seems as though Gramma was largely oblivious to the tumultuous times in which she lived. That may be a key to her longevity, according to Steven Austad, a biology professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
"They live very slow lives," says Austad, the author of Methuselah's Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Healthier Lives. "As biological processes cause the damage that makes all species age, that slow process leads to long life."
How long is long? For comparison, NPR reported on the death of a Galápagos tortoise in 2011 at Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, S.D., at the age of around 130 and one named Lonesome George in the Galápagos who died at "well over 100 years old" in 2012. In 2015, "Speed" died at the San Diego Zoo at about 150. We also reported on the 135th birthday (and first Father's Day) for Goliath at Zoo Miami earlier this year.
"You can boil it down to 'drive fast, die young' or 'grow old with grace,' " says Stephen Blake, an assistant professor of biology at Saint Louis University who has studied the giant tortoises, which he says "are definitely kind of Prius drivers."
He says their bodies possess a unique ability to effect a "physiological oil change" that helps them clean toxic compounds that build up over time.
A few years ago, during a "shellabration" of Gramma's 138th birthday, the zoo put out this video.
Gramma was described as "the Queen of the Zoo" and a "sweet and shy tortoise," according to the zoo's statement. "[She] quietly touched the lives of countless people over nearly a century in San Diego as an incredible ambassador for reptile conservation worldwide."
Galápagos tortoises are believed to have arrived in the islands by water from the South American mainland, Blake says. "They've got a long neck … that can be used like a snorkel. They're buoyant and they're stable because they're sort of bell shaped," he says. "Once at sea … they can survive a long oceanic voyage, which probably took six weeks or something like that to get from the South American mainland to Galápagos."
He says that geneticists believe the entire population in the Galápagos originates from a single female who reached the island chain about 2 million to 3 million years ago. "Giant tortoises — females can store sperm for up to about seven years," Blake says.
Male Galápagos tortoises can weigh more than 500 pounds, with females about half that size. The males can reach 6 feet in length. However, Blake notes that "the jury's out" on whether Galápagos tortoises are truly oversized in an evolutionary sense because the South American mainland once hosted species that were larger.
There are 15 subspecies of Galápagos tortoises in the islands, three of which are considered extinct.
Gramma was born just a few years after Charles Darwin died, but her parents and the famed scientist could theoretically have crossed paths during Darwin's visit to the islands on the HMS Beagle in 1835, Blake says.
"It's highly probable that there are tortoises alive that were on the Galápagos when Darwin was there. Whether they saw him, who knows," he says.
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