Another science-related tragedy.

National Geographic: Longest-lived animal found, then killed -- Clam was 405

A clam dredged from icy Arctic waters is being hailed as the world's longest-lived animal.
Climate researchers at Bangor University in the United Kingdom recently counted 405 annual growth rings in the shells of a quahog clam.

When this animal was young, Shakespeare was writing his greatest plays and the English were establishing their first settlements in the Americas.

The team plucked the mollusk from 262-feet-deep (80-meter-deep) waters off the northern coast of Iceland.

The team is studying growth lines in clam shells as part of a project to understand how the climate has changed over the past thousand years.

Another victim of the Heat Nazis!

"On a side note, we discovered this very old clam," said Al Wanamaker, a postdoctoral researcher at the university.

Quahog clams are known for their longevity.

A 220-year-old taken from American waters in 1982 holds the official Guinness Book of World Records oldest animal title. Unofficially, the record belongs to a 374-year-old Icelandic clam housed in a German museum.

The new clam is at least 30 years older, according to the Bangor University team. The animal died when the researchers counted its rings.

Curiosity killed the clam.

"There's probably many others that are actually quite older—we just haven't found them yet," Wanamaker said.

Or killed them...