Harriet (c. 1830 – June 23 2006) was a Galápagos tortoise (Geochelone elephantopus porteri)
who had an estimated age of 175 years at the time of her death in Australia. Harriet is the second oldest tortoise ever
authenticated, the oldest being Tu'i Malila, who died in 1965
at the age of 188.
She was reportedly collected by Charles Darwin himself during his 1835 visit to the
Galápagos Islands as part of his round-the-world survey expedition, transported to England, and then brought to her final home,
Australia, by a retiring captain of the Beagle.
However, some doubt was cast on this story by the fact that Darwin had never visited the island that Harriet originally came
from.
Detective work
In August 1994, a historian from Mareeba published a letter in the local newspaper about two tortoises he remembered at the
Botanic Gardens in 1922 and that the keepers of the time were saying that the tortoises had arrived at the Gardens in 1860 as a
donation from John Clements Wickham who was the First Lieutenant (and later
Captain) of HMS Beagle under Fitzroy during
the voyage of the Beagle in 1835.
Wickham actually brought three tortoises to Australia when he arrived after retiring from the Royal Navy in 1841; these lived
at Newstead House from 1841 to 1860. Records show that the tortoises were
donated to the Botanic Gardens in 1860 when Wickham retired as Government Resident of Moreton Bay (now Brisbane) and left
Australia for Paris..
There is evidence from letters that Charles Darwin was well aware that Wickham had
these tortoises, as he sent a letter to Huxley in 1860 informing him that he should speak with Wickham in Paris about the last of
the tortoises from the 1835 expedition as he had them. Hence the evidence that the three tortoises at the Brisbane Botanic
Gardens were genuinely collected by Darwin is actually quite strong.
Harriet's subspecies
That the subspecies Harriet represents was not from one of the islands visited by Darwin is not actually problematic. Darwin
definitely collected tortoises on San Cristobal, San Salvadore, and Santa Maria; however, the
subspecies on Santa Maria (G. n. nigra) was in fact already extinct when Darwin visited the islands, having been killed
and eaten by prisoners on the prison colony there. Yet Darwin still collected tortoises on Santa Maria: the tortoises he found
had been retrieved by the prisoners from other islands for food and Darwin collected some of these before they reached the
stewpot. Hence they were a mixture of subspecies from a number of islands. Harriet, as a G. n. porteri, is from
Santa Cruz. One of the other tortoises (Tom) is still in the
Queensland Museum and has been identified as a G. n. chathamensis (from San
Cristobal): this subspecies went extinct in 1906 in the wild and by the time Tom died in 1942 he was the last surviving specimen
of the subspecies.
Other theories about Harriet
An initial analysis of Harriet's DNA was unable to identify her subspecies in a cross section of 900 animals representing 26
extant and extinct populations. After reanalysis she was assigned to G. n. porteri. However, her genetic diversity and
other factors in her DNA sequence data indicated she was most likely at least two generations removed from the oldest specimens
of her subspecies in the dataset. The oldest G. n. porteri in the dataset were collected as adults in 1907 and hence this would place Harriet as having to be alive by 1860.
This dating rules out many alternate possibilities for Harriet, as prior to 1900 Australia was a
very difficult place to get to. There were only two imports of Galápagos tortoises prior to 1900 and 4 of the 5 animals involved
have been accounted for and are still represented by museum material. The suggestion in some quarters that Harriet was collected
by whalers and brought to Australia is not possible, as Australia had its own whaling industry and whaling ships from South
America did not visit Australia.
The tortoises collected by Darwin were all recorded in Fitzroy's journals of the voyage including their measurements. As they
averaged 11" in length and this represented an approximate age of 5 years for the subspecies Harriet's year of birth was
estimated by Scott Thomson to 1830 with an error of 2 years either way in the 1995 paper describing
the events of Harriet's life, and the results of the research.
Later life
Harriet was thought to be a male for many years and was actually named Harry after Harry
Oakman, the creator of the zoo at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, but this was corrected in the 1960s by a visiting director
of Hawaii's Honolulu Zoo. (As it happens, Tom, the specimen in the Queensland Museum, was also a female.)
On November 15, 2005, her much publicized 175th birthday
was celebrated at the Australia Zoo. This event was attended by Scott Thomson (the researcher on Harriet's history), three
generations of the Fleay family, Robin Stewart (author of Darwin's Tortoise), and many hundreds of others who knew this
tortoise during the latter part of her long voyage through time.
Harriet died in her enclosure on June 23, 2006 of heart failure
following a short illness.
Character
Harriet was said to be very good-natured. She loved the attention of humans and enjoyed when people patted her on the
scute. Harriet spent a majority of her day napping at her home pond. Her favourite food was
hibiscus flowers.
Timeline for Harriet
(see Thomson, Irwin and
Irwin (1995))
- ca. 1828 – 1832: Harriet hatches, probably on Santa Cruz.
- 1835: Harriet is probably collected by Charles Darwin
and taken to England.
- 1841: Wickham retires from the Royal Navy, moves to Australia and brings three tortoises with
him. Lives at Newstead House.
- 1859: First publication of Darwin’s Origin of
Species.
- ca. 1860: Probable time when the three tortoises are placed in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens
as Wickham soon left Australia for France.
- ca. 1870: The earliest first-hand account of Harriet.
- 1882: Charles Darwin dies.
- 1942: Tom – one of the original three tortoises – dies, and is placed in the Queensland
Museum.
- 1952: Harriet moves to Fleay’s Fauna Sanctuary.
- 1987: Harriet moves to the Queensland Reptile Park (Australia Zoo).
- 1995: Harriet's remarkable history and the results of the research are presented.
- 2005: Harriet's 175th birthday is attended by many people who had a long association with
her.
- 2006: On June 23, Harriet dies of heart failure at Australia
Zoo.
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