Pancho Pistolas's Journal: Yeah, but now we'll never know...

Taken from a wikipedia entry (:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctica_islandica)

In October 2007 researchers from Bangor University in North Wales determined that an ocean quahog clam, dredged up off the Icelandic coast, was aged between 405 and 410 years by counting rings on its shell, making it the longest-lived animal on record. The clam, nicknamed "Ming" after the Chinese dynasty in which it was born, was young when Queen Elizabeth I came to the end of her reign and Shakespeare was writing his plays.[1][2] The researchers are uncertain how long the clam may have lived had it been left on the ocean floor.[3]

On the one hand, we'd never have known about this critter if not for the dredging that found it, in the name of research. On the other hand, gee, we're never going to know how long this critter might've lived.

It makes my head spin to contemplate this.