Life
Sun Sets on British Raj
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| One of the last surviving icons of the British Raj, a giant tortoise that once belonged to the Colonial General Robert Clive, the first British administrator of Calcutta in the 18th century, died in Calcutta’s Allipore Zoo in late March.
The 255-year-old, 550 lb Aldabra tortoise called Addwaita, meaning “one and only,” from the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean was gifted to Clive, whose admirer dubbed him the “conqueror of India,” and who laid the foundations of the British Empire. Addwaita is believed to be almost 80 years older than the world’s next oldest documented living animal, Harriet, a 176-year-old Galapagos tortoise in a zoo in Brisbane in Australia. |