The 226-Year Old Fish

- A koi carp: Poor motor skills and refusal to adapt to new technology not pictured

I returned to The Book of Lists today in search of inspiration, and stumbled upon a list to do with the longest recorded lifespans for different animals. Sitting at the top of the list was the humble tortoise, whose longest-living member crawled to a mighty 188 years old. I've always been a big fan of the tortoise's attitude to life, particularly as portrayed in the story of the hare and the tortoise. I love this story because it allows me to get away with dazzling displays of laziness, apathy and weak ambition by claiming that "slow and steady wins the race". Never mind that it took a baffling display of arrogance from the vastly superior hare to blow his lead, and that even if he had slept for eight hours, it still would have taken an impossible range of unrelated events to drive the tortoise on to victory. Fact is, the tortoise won, therefore it is better to stay in bed until midday then get up and go for a run. Slow and steady, it's my mantra.

I was therefore somewhat disappointed to discover that it appears that the tortoise's laid-back style doesn't always come up trumps; the slowest and steadiest of all his house-carrying brethren, a tortoise by the name of Tui Malila, lived to be 188, but was not the oldest vertebrate ever to have lived - that honour goes to:

A koi carp called Manako lived longer than any other vertebrate in recorded history, dying at the age of 226 years.

Manako was owned by Dr. Komei Koshihara, who told her enraptured home nation of Japan in 1966 that her pet koi carp, Manako, was 215 years old. You can read a transcript here, which has been translated into reliably poor English. Further investigation shows that an examination of one of Manako's scales showed it's advanced age. Hanako was born before America, but much like flared trousers and socialism, died in 1981, or as it's known in Japan, Showa 56. That's right, in Japan, years are named after the current emperor, with the number signifying how many years they have been in power. Quite possibly a better fact, but thought I'd save it for the end. As we all know, slow and steady wins nearly every race.