{"id":396534,"date":"2025-11-22T08:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T08:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396534\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T08:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T08:36:17","slug":"queen-of-the-zoo-gramma-the-tortoise-dies-after-century-at-san-diego-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396534\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Queen of the Zoo,’ Gramma the tortoise, dies after century at San Diego Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Gramma at the zoo\u2019s celebration of what\u2019s believed to have been her 138th birthday in 2022. (Image from @SanDiegoZoo on YouTube)<\/p>\n

Gramma, a Gal\u00e1pagos tortoise that the San Diego Zoo<\/a> called \u201ca quiet and constant presence\u201d for nearly a century at the Zoo, has died.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, a century, dating back to the zoo\u2019s early days.<\/p>\n

The zoo, in a statement posted to social media, announced \u201cwith immense sadness\u201d that the tortoise died Thursday.<\/p>\n

Though her exact birth date remains unknown, experts estimate Gramma may have lived for up to 141 years, making her the oldest inhabitant of the zoo.<\/p>\n

Wildlife care specialists and her health team had been closely monitoring her ongoing bone conditions due to Gramma\u2019s advanced age. <\/p>\n

They held her in high esteem, calling her \u201cthe Queen of the Zoo,\u201d but as her \u201cconditions recently progressed, (the team) made the compassionate and exceptionally difficult decision to say goodbye,\u201d zoo officials said.<\/p>\n

Gramma arrived in San Diego between 1928\u20131931 as part of the first group of Gal\u00e1pagos tortoises<\/a> to come to the zoo soon after its formal opening in 1923<\/a>. Legend has it, officials said, that zoo founder Dr. Harry Wegeforth welcomed her. <\/p>\n

The zoo did the math, calling Gramma \u201ca witness to history\u201d whose lifetime included the tenures of 20 U.S. presidents, two World Wars and two pandemics.<\/p>\n

Officials called her \u201can extraordinary ambassador for her species\u201d and said \u201cshe gently touched countless lives over nearly a century in San Diego\u201d and promoted \u201creptile conservation worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did so \u201cwhile enjoying sunshine, endless herbivorous snacks and puddles in her habitats throughout Reptile Mesa<\/a>,\u201d the zoo said. She particularly loved romaine lettuce and cactus fruit.<\/p>\n

Her lifespan appears to have been about average for Gal\u00e1pagos tortoises, which easily can reach 100 years of age, with many living to be 150. Remarkably, some can approach the two century mark. <\/p>\n

Given her decades of residency at the San Diego Zoo, Gramma also connected generations of team members, guests, volunteers and conservationists, and as technology advanced, she went from appearing in simple black-and-white photographs to becoming a fixture in the zoo\u2019s social media posts. <\/p>\n

Or a \u201cshell-ebrity\u201d as they put it in a Facebook post last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaring for such a remarkable tortoise was a privilege,\u201d the zoo concluded. <\/p>\n

READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gramma at the zoo\u2019s celebration of what\u2019s believed to have been her 138th birthday in 2022. (Image from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":396535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,11414,7264,188030,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-396534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-zoo","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-tortoises","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}