Gramma, a Galápagos tortoise believed to have hatched around 1884, lived through sweeping changes in human history — the fall of empires, two world wars and more than 20 U.S. presidents. If the commonly cited birth year is correct, she was born when Chester A. Arthur was president, the United States had 39 states, the Washington Monument was finished, the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal cornerstone was being set and the first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary appeared. Queen Victoria still reigned and Greenwich had just been established as the prime meridian.
Gramma spent roughly a century at the San Diego Zoo and died on Thursday at an estimated 141 years old, the zoo said. Zoo staff, who had been supporting her for age-related conditions, made a compassionate decision to say goodbye with wildlife care personnel at her side. She arrived in San Diego around 1928 after coming from the Bronx Zoo and had been taken from the Galápagos earlier in life, becoming a familiar presence and a living link to natural history for generations of visitors.
Experts point to tortoises’ slow pace of life as a big reason they can reach such ages. Steven Austad, a biology professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of Methuselah’s Zoo, says tortoises “live very slow lives.” In species with slow metabolisms and life histories, biological damage accumulates more slowly, which helps explain extended longevity.
Galápagos tortoises are well known for long lives. Other notable specimens include a tortoise at Reptile Gardens in South Dakota that lived to about 130, Lonesome George who exceeded 100, and “Speed,” which arrived in San Diego in 1933 and was estimated at around 150. Zoo Miami celebrated Goliath’s 135th birthday earlier this year. Stephen Blake, an assistant professor of biology at Saint Louis University who studies giant tortoises, summarizes the difference from faster-lived animals as essentially “drive fast, die young” versus “grow old with grace,” calling giant tortoises “definitely kind of Prius drivers.” He also notes physiological mechanisms — likened to a “physiological oil change” — that help clear toxic compounds over time.
The San Diego Zoo honored Gramma on her 138th birthday with a public celebration and video. The zoo called her “the Queen of the Zoo” and described her as a “sweet and shy tortoise” who quietly touched many lives and served as an ambassador for reptile conservation worldwide.
Biologically, Galápagos tortoises are adapted for long-distance ocean dispersal from the South American mainland: long necks that can act almost like snorkels, buoyant, bell-shaped shells and other traits that could allow an individual to survive weeks at sea. Genetic studies suggest the Galápagos population traces back to a single female that arrived two to three million years ago, and females can store sperm for up to about seven years — a trait that helps colonization from a lone immigrant.
Males can reach more than 500 pounds and about 6 feet long, while females are roughly half that size. Scientists recognize 15 subspecies across the islands; three subspecies are considered extinct. Gramma was born only a few years after Charles Darwin’s death, and because tortoises live so long, some living tortoises could plausibly have been around when Darwin visited the islands in 1835 — a reminder of how individual animals can connect us directly to deep threads of natural and human history.