SHELLEBRATIONS!
121st birthday for Tommy the tortoise, UK’s ‘oldest pet’
SHE can hardly be accused of living life in the fast lane.
But after reaching the age of 121, Tommy the tortoise – her owners thought she was male for the best part of a century – deserved a party.
So her owners shelled out for hats, candles and cards to mark her birthday.
Thought to be Britain’s, and maybe the world’s, oldest pet, Tommy has been handed down through three generations. She was bought as an 11-year-old for £1 from a London market by Margaret Cloonan in 1909. She now lives with Mrs Cloonan’s granddaughter, Sheila Floris, and her husband, Carlo.
Mother of two Mrs Floris, 62, a property developer from Guildford, Surrey, says she has never had to take Tommy to the vet and puts her pet’s health down to a good diet and plenty of love and care.
‘I was five years old when she was passed to my family,’ she said. ‘My earliest memory of her is in my mother and father’s garden crawling around. She’s a survivor.’
A Hermann’s tortoise – an endangered species – she was named Tommy when first bought and was thought to be male until around 25 years ago, when she began to lay eggs.
‘The eggs were empty but we were all shocked,’ Mrs Floris said. ‘We’d always thought she was a boy. It was too late to change the name.’ She believes Tommy could live for at least another 50 years. A Guinness World Records spokesman said the greatest proven age of tortoise in the UK is at least 116 years for a Mediterranean spurthighed tortoise, which died at Paignton Zoo, Devon, in 1957.
Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise which lives on St Helena, is the world’s oldest verified living land animal at an estimated 187.
Is your pet older than Tommy? Email tortoise@dailymail.co.uk