World's Oldest Animal Accidentally Killed at the Hands of Researchers Studying the Creatures Age
The oldest living creature on Earth was inadvertently killed when being studied by scientists at Bangor University in North Wales.
The creature, known as Ming the Mollusk, is actually an ocean quahog was first found in Iceland in 2006 and originally thought to be 405 years old.
Upon further review scientists felt that they had initially got the creatures age wrong and decided to study the quahog's age further. However, when they opened the shell to better determine the age they accidentally killed the mollusk, but were able to confidently put the age at 507 years.
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"We got it wrong the first time and maybe we were a bit hasty publishing our findings back then. But we are absolutely certain that we've got the right age now," Dr. Paul Butler, an ocean scientist at the university of Bangor, said in a statement.
Scientist were able to determine the age much like one would determine the age of a tree – by counting its rings. Scientists have two places to count the rings - the hinge of the shell, which is generally considered by scientists as the best place to count the rings because it protected from the elements, and the edge of the shell.
Researchers noticed that due to the advanced age of the quahog the rings at the edge of the shell had become compressed and had to be closely counted in order to get an accurate age. Upon a closer review they determined the mollusk was born in 1499.
"The fact alone that we got our hands on an animal that's 507 years old is incredibly fascinating, but the really exciting thing is of course everything we can learn from studying the mollusk," Jan Heinemeier, associate professor at the University of Denmark, who helped date Ming, told Science Nordic.
The creature can also help scientists determine historical ocean temperatures to better understand Earth's changing climate.
"This is important to our understanding of how much changes in the oceans affect the climate on land," Rob Witbaard of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, told the Daily Telegraph. "And the really amazing thing is that the pattern in the ocean quahog's growth rings actually recurs in tree rings."
