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| A zookeeper tends to Adwaita (2005). |
Historical records show he was a pet of General Robert Clive of the British East India Company, and had spent several years in his sprawling estate before he was brought to the zoo.
It is said that the Aldabra tortoise was a gift to Clive from the British seafarers who captured the tortoise from the Seychelles Islands. Reports show that Clive had four such tortoises in his villa in Latbagan at Barrackpore, in the suburbs of Kolkata. Three of the animals died, while Adwaita was transferred to the Alipore zoo in 1875 by Carl Louis Schwendler, the founder of the zoo. Adwaita lived in his enclosure in the zoo until his death in 2006.
Weighing 250 kg (590 lb), Adwaita was a bachelor with no records of his progeny. He lived on a diet of wheat bran, carrots, lettuce, soaked gram, bread, grass and salt. His shell cracked and a wound developed a few months before his death from liver failure in March 2006
The age of Adwaita at his death is estimated to have been around 255 years. If confirmed, this would have made Adwaita the oldest known tortoise of modern times, living longer than Harriet by 80 years, and Tu'i Malila by 67 years.
