- Who
- Granddad, Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri
- What
- 109 (±6 years) year(s):day(s)
- Where
- United States (Chicago)
- When
The oldest aquarium fish on record is Granddad, a male Australian lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) that was assessed to have been 109 years old (give or take six years; 95% confidence) when he died, as reported in Frontiers in Environmental Science on 21 June 2022. Purchased from Taronga Zoo and Aquarium in Sydney, Australia, in 1933, he was brought to the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois, USA, where he resided for 84 years until 2017. Over his lifetime, the Shedd Aquarium estimates that Granddad was seen by more than 100 million visitors.
Granddad was estimated to have been in his mid-90s when he was euthanized owing to ailing health on 5 February 2017. Confirmation that he was, in fact, a centenarian only emerged after preserved DNA from his fin was analysed using a method targeted at ageing this type of fish known as the "lungfish clock" (developed by Mayne et al., 2021). The genetic research also revealed that Granddad originated from the Burnett River in Queensland, Australia.
Considerably upping the age range of this species (the previous upper limit was 77 years old), according to this study, that would make Australian lungfish the 21st longest-lived animal overall, the 12th-oldest fish and the second-oldest freshwater fish on record of those recognized on the AnAge database of superlatively aged animals. It is only surpassed among freshwater fish by the bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) of which a 112-year-old specimen collected near Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, USA, was described in Communications Biology on 23 May 2019.
Granddad was one of two lungfishes acquired from Taronga Zoo and Aquarium as part of Shedd’s 1933 Pacific collecting expedition for the A Century of Progress International Exposition that took place in Chicago that year. They were the first of their species to be exhibited in the USA.
The study was conducted by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation at the Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre in Western Australia.
Another Australian lungfish, named Methuselah, which has been a resident at the California Academy of Sciences' Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco, California, USA, since 1938, is estimated to be over 90 years old and is a prime contender to be the oldest living aquarium fish as of July 2022.
