Charles Darwin and Steve lrwin Owned the Same Tortoise

In 1835, Charles Darwin left the Galápagos Islands on board the Beagle, taking some giant tortoises with him. One of them, named Harriet, was born around 1830 on the island of Santa Cruz – which, curiously enough, Darwin never visited.
Harriet crossed oceans, empires and continents. She followed routes that touched the black sand beaches of Tahiti, the coral reefs of German Samoa, the uninhabited lands of Manono and Apolima in Western Samoa. Her presence also made its way into Victorian drawing rooms, before finding a home in an Australian zoo, where she lived out his final decades under the care of zoologist and TV star Steve Irwin.
When she died in 2006, Harriet was over 170 years old. She had lived long enough to see the industrial revolution transform into the Internet age. She had gone from the status of mere scientific specimen to pop icon, from living body to meme subject. Her story – or perhaps her legend – continues to circulate today, fluctuating between the naturalistic archive and the culture of virality. A piece of information that mutates, deforms, and survives.
Like a species that adapts in order to continue to exist, if only to be shared.