The Clam That Outlived Empires
In 2006, researchers at Bangor University pulled an ocean quahog clam, Arctica islandica, from the seabed off Iceland and counted its growth rings the way a forester reads a tree. The rings said 507 years. The clam, nicknamed Ming, had been alive when the Mughal Empire was still being founded. Scientists confirmed the age through independent radiocarbon dating of the shell carbonate, making it the oldest non-colonial animal ever recorded with verified evidence.