Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos in 1835 and the giant tortoises were one of the many unusual species which greeted him of which he collected several specimens to return to England for further study. One of those tortoises, Harriet, went on to become the oldest recorded Galápagos tortoise – she finally succumbed to a heart attack in 2006 at the ripe old age of 175, surviving Darwin by well over a century.