Clam claims oldest animal record
Welsh researchers from Bangor University hope that a 405-year-old clam, dredged from the north Iceland shelf, will reveal how the marine environment has changed in recent centuries.

"Its death is an unfortunate aspect of this work, but we hope to derive lots of information from it," said Al Wanamaker, a postdoctoral scientist on the university's Arctica team. "For our work it's a bonus, but it wasn't good for this particular animal."

The team also hope that studying the clam will provide some insight into the aging process, as some of these clams are predicted to be 600-years-old.

"If, [in the Arctica islandica clam], evolution has created a model of successful resistance to the damage of ageing, it is possible that an investigation of the tissues of these real life Methuselahs might help us to understand the process of ageing," said team member Chris Richardson.

Any educated guesses as to what the team may find in regard to environmental change and/or aging? What determines lifespan, anyway?