los angeles — More than a century after eating her favorite foods of romaine lettuce and cactus fruit, Gramma, the beloved Galapagos tortoise, the San Diego Zoo’s oldest resident, has died.
Zoo officials said Gram was born in her native habitat and is estimated to be 141 years old. She died on November 20.
It’s not clear exactly when the turtle arrived at the San Diego Zoo, but zoo officials said it came from the Bronx Zoo in either 1928 or 1931 as part of their first collection of Galapagos tortoises.
As the world changed around her, she delighted visitors with her sweet and shy personality. She has lived through two world wars and 20 US presidents.
Her care professionals affectionately called her the “Queen of the Zoo.” The zoo said she was suffering from age-related bone disease that had recently developed before she was euthanized.
Many visitors commented on social media about having visited Gramma for the first time when they were young, and being able to return years later with their children.
Christina Park, 69, said one of her first memories from her childhood was going to the San Diego Zoo when she was 3 or 4 years old and riding on the back of a turtle. This is no longer allowed, but the experience inspired her to keep a small desert tortoise as a pet and learn more about turtle conservation.
“It’s amazing that they’ve been able to survive so much,” Park said. “And yet they are still there.”
Galapagos tortoises can live for more than 100 years in the wild, and nearly twice that in captivity.
The oldest known Galapagos tortoise was named Harriet, and she lived at Australia Zoo until the age of 175. It was collected from the Galapagos Islands in 1835, when it was the size of a dinner plate, according to the zoo. This means that she hatched somewhere around 1830, and died in 2006.
The Galapagos tortoises include 15 subspecies of tortoises found on the islands, three of which are considered extinct. The rest are all endangered or critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Concerted efforts have been made to breed these tortoises in captivity over the past several decades, with more than 10,000 baby tortoises released into the wild since 1965, according to the Galapagos Conservancy. Some subspecies have been brought back from the brink of extinction.
In April, four young Galapagos tortoises were born She was born at the Philadelphia Zoo For first-time parents who were almost 100 years old, For the first time in the history of the zoo. In June, Zoo Miami resident and Galapagos tortoise Goliath He became a father for the first time At the age of 135 years.