Harriet, who was mistaken for a male for at least the first 124 years of her life, is thought by her Australian handlers to have been plucked from obscurity in 1835 by none other than Charles Darwin.

That would make her a key player in the evolution of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, as well as the oldest creature currently walking the planet.

But a British micro-palaeontologist who has undertaken the most serious reconstruction yet of Harriet’s epic plod from the eastern Pacific to Australia believes she was picked up by whalers for something more prosaic than research, namely her urine (for drinking) and fresh meat.

Is she really Darwin’s tortoise? The theory rests on claims that she was one of four giant tortoises known to have been collected by Darwin’s expedition to the Galapagos in 1835. The four were loaded onto the Beagle, reaching Plymouth in October 1836, where they swiftly took sick.

Two were dead by the following spring. According to biographies offered by Harriet’s successive Australian keepers, she was one of the other two, shipped down under in 1841 by John Wickham, a shipmate of Darwin from the Beagle.

This story is supported by the presence of another giant tortoise in the Queensland Museum in Brisbane. With the words “Tom — giant land tortoise died 1929 Brisbane Botanic Gardens” carved on its shell, Tom is thought to be one of three tortoises brought to the country for exhibition in 1841. Harriet may be the third. However, analysis of her mitochondrial DNA by US researchers shows she is almost certainly from Santa Cruz island in the Galapagos. The Beagle’s tortoises were taken from Espanola, Santa Maria and San Salvador.

The British expert Paul Chambers has shown that Wickham was probably in Australia when he is supposed to have been travelling there with giant tortoises in his luggage.

“Some in Australia are confident, but there is certainly a bit of a dispute about whether (Harriet) was actually part of Darwin’s collection or not,” Colin McCarthy, collection manager of reptiles, amphibians and fish at the Natural History Museum, said yesterday.

What is not in doubt is Harriet’s age. The US research on tortoise DNA “baselines” showed big changes in tortoise DNA on Santa Cruz island after a terrible cull there. Harriet’s DNA predates the cull, making her at least 170.

The size of an enormous paella dish, she is fond of aubergine, courgette, beans and parsley. There are thought to be barely a dozen of her sub-species left. This is partly her fault. She still ovulates, but has not had a mate for 100 years.

ANIMAL VETS

Oldest animal
A Madagascar radiated tortoise called Tui Malila was claimed to have been presented to the Tongan royal family by Captain Cook. It was at least 188 when it died in 1965

Oldest goldfish
Tish, won at a North Yorkshire fairground in 1956, was 43 when it died in 1999

Oldest elephant
Lin Wang, from Taiwan, died in 2003 aged 86. A military elephant, he served with the Chinese in the second Sino-Japanese War

Oldest primate
Cheeta, the chimpanzee who starred in the 1930s Tarzan films is the oldest recorded non-human primate. The retired 73-year-old likes to watch his films with his grandson, and has had a collection of paintings in the National Gallery

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