By Richard Schiffman Tortoises are famous for living to a ripe
old age. One giant tortoise named Adwaita is said to have lived
255 years in the Calcutta Zoo—he finally died of liver failure
in 2006. But news of a tortoise that lived 30 years in a shed
suggests that the survival skills of these hardy creatures may
be even more astounding than we had imagined. A red-footed
tortoise named Manuela mysteriously “disappeared” from a home in
a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1982. The Almeida family
assumed that their pet had lumbered out of the house after
builders at the site left the front door ajar, according to
Brazil’s Globo TV. (Watch turtle and tortoise videos.) Recently,
Leandro Almeida was cleaning out a storage shed and threw away
an old wooden box. As he told Globo, “I put the box on the
pavement for the rubbish men to collect, and a neighbor said,
‘You’re not throwing out the turtle as well are you?’ I looked
and saw her. At that moment, I turned white, I just couldn’t
believe what I was seeing.” T