[quote]Scientists Find Oldest Living Animal, Then Kill It
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The world’s oldest living animal, at least until recently.
British marine biologists have found what may be the oldest living animal — that is, until they killed it.
The team from Bangor University in Wales was dredging the waters north of Iceland as part of routine research when the unfortunate specimen, belonging to the clam species Arctica islandica, commonly known as the ocean quahog, was hauled up from waters 250 feet deep.
Only after researchers cut through its shell, which made it more of an ex-clam, and counted its growth rings did they realize how old it had been — between 405 and 410 years old.
Another clam of the same species had been verified at 220 years old, and a third may have lived 374 years. But this most recent clam was the oldest yet.
“Its death is an unfortunate aspect of this work, but we hope to derive lots of information from it,” postdoctoral scientist Al Wanamaker told London’s Guardian newspaper. “For our work, it’s a bonus, but it wasn’t good for this particular animal.” foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306076,00.html[/quote]
Seriously, though, those are mighty tasty clams – quahogs. When I lived on Long Island, NY, we used to dig for them every summer and come home with buckets of them. Good raw on the half shell with lemon and/or hot sauce. But we also had this outstanding recipe that involved taking the meat from a bunch of quahogs, mincing it, mixing with bread crumbs, parsley, ground bacon and other stuff, sticking it back in the half shells and toasting them under the broiler. Mmmm. That was 30 years ago, though, and I’m afraid the area has almost surely been seriously over fished, clammed, musseled, etc., since then. Too bad. Too bad too about them killing a 400 year old clam.
Maybe the clam was bored having to live 400 years. lol.
Reminds me of those giant sequoias that they chop down, and display the stump to show you the tree rings to see when it was alive in 1066, 1492, 1798, etc. I always thought they conveniently left out the arrow pointing to the last ring with a caption: Year X: Tree chopped down.
I don’t think I can ever casually order a plate of clams again. That sucks!
"So there you were my little lovely, nestled in the unspoilt waters loving life a hundred years before white men started scuffing up the dirt of Australia with their boot marks . . . slurp . . . "
