Records breaking 405 years old animal found

[trux]

From National Geographic News:

A clam dredged from icy Arctic waters is being hailed as the world's longest-lived animal.

Climate researchers at Bangor University in the United Kingdom recently counted 405 annual growth rings in the shells of a quahog clam.


When this animal was young, Shakespeare was writing his greatest plays and the English were establishing their first settlements in the Americas. The team plucked the mollusk from 262-feet-deep (80-meter-deep) waters off the northern coast of Iceland.

What I find sad is that the Methuselah mollusk did not survive the rings counting - I wonder if the scientist decided to count the rings from inside. I suspect the animal finished in his stomach.

[penguinator]

Poor clam. Never harmed anyone!

[John P]

Yeah, Seems like a destructive way to discover it.

[dallasdiver]

Jeez, I wonder what a 405 year old clam would taste like? I wonder how much longer he could have survived if left undesturded?

[bgill]

See here too! http://forums.deeperblue.net/beach-b...dest-clam.html

[Pastor]

Originally Posted by bgill

See here too! http://forums.deeperblue.net/beach-b...dest-clam.html

The definitive version, National Geographic is alright but when you need the facts you can't beat the Daily Post

[jimy286]

May b there like fine wine.

[Rockbrother]

don't start rumers like that, soon it will be a delicatessen (and it will probably help you live long as well) and the whole population will be wiped out. :-)

aaagh , I should have read the Post, they are already looking for ways to make you live longer.

[Pastor]

Actually, the clams that are dredged up by the Prince Madoc that aren't used for research are cooked and sold in the Students Union restaurant at a discount price. To be fair Students at Bangor have some of the best selection of exotic sea food available anywhere on earth. All of which is complete bull of course

[Mr. X]

I was at the Natural History Museum in London recently. Among the shells on display (which included red & green California Ormers) they had a scallop shell. Supposedly you can tell the age of a scallop by counting the *dark* rings. The scallop on display was of normal size (perhaps even a tad small) and they had aged it 12 or 15 years. You need to count in the middle section as the outer edges don't have all the rings (or so it seemed).

[Been waiting for an appropriate place to park that nugget of useless information!]

Pastor - we can read you white writing...and you too Island Sands.

[jimy286]

Hang on do you meen the bumps longways?

[BatRay]

Trees have dark and light rings, and if you're aging a tree, you count one color or the other, but not both. The light rings were grown during the active growing season, e.g. spring through summer, and the dark rings were grown during the dormant season. It looks like some shellfish are the same way.
You can also age a fish by counting the growth rings on their scales.

[land shark]

You can also age a fish by counting the growth rings on their scales.

Its my understanding that this is not considered truly accurate any longer and there seems to be more intrest in the otolith bone rings

[octpora]

i just checked my scales and , yep it works- 26 growth rings.


Wonder if an analysis of the shell layers would show any environmental changes- like trees or ice do.

[trux]

Another living recordman was found! This time not a sea animal, but a tree. I thought it would interest some of you anyway, so am posting it here.

Until recently the 5,000 years old Bristlecone pines were considered the oldest know living organism:

300px-BristleConePine.jpg Photo: Wikipedia

Recently several spruce trees older than 8,000 years were found in Sweden. One of them is almost 10,000 years old (9,550 years):

World's oldest tree discovered in Sweden - Telegraph

080414-oldest-tree_big.jpg Photo: Leif Kullman, Umeå University