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Wisdom, the oldest known wild bird, has yet another feather in her cap—a new chick.

The Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis)—62 years old at least—recently hatched a healthy baby in the U.S. Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, her sixth in a row and possibly the 35th of her lifetime, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) North American Bird Banding Program. (Related: "51-Year-Old Albatross Breaks N. American Age Record [2003].")

But Wisdom's longevity would be unknown if it weren't for a longtime bird-banding project founded by USGS research wildlife biologist Chandler Robbins.

Now 94, Robbins was the first scientist to band Wisdom in 1956, who at the time was "just another nesting bird," he said. Over the next ten years, Robbins banded tens of thousands of black-footed albatrosses (Phoebastria nigripes) and Laysan albatrosses as part of a project to study the behavior of the large seabirds, which at the time were colliding with U.S. Navy aircraft.

Robbins didn't return to the tiny Pacific island—now part of the U.S. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument—until 2002, when he "recaptured as many birds as I could in hopes that some of them would be the old-timers."

Indeed, Robbins did recapture Wisdom—but he didn't know it until he got back to his office at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland, and checked her band number in the database.

"That was real exciting, because we didn't think the chances of finding one that old would be that good," Robbins said Wednesday in an interview from his office at the Patuxent center, where he still works.

Britain's oldest pet dies as tortoise that survived two world wars passes away aged 130 after being bitten on the leg by a rat

• Thomas, born in 1882, bitten on leg by rat and wound became infected
• Tortoise outlived five monarchs and survived both World Wars
• Survived Blitz attack and was pulled from rubble of bomb-hit house in Esse

He survived the Blitz, five monarchs and both World Wars.

But Thomas, who was Britain's oldest resident, has died aged 130 - after being bitten by a rat.

He was born in 1882 and was pulled out of the rubble of a bomb-hit house in Essex in 1945.

The reptile had to be put down by owner June Le Gallez after being attacked by a rat in the back garden of her home in Guernsey.

Tearful June said: 'We are all very upset as you can imagine, Thomas was like a member of the family.
'He was put down after he was bitten on the leg by a rogue rat in the garden and the wound become so inflamed that it started pushing into his shell.

"George The Giant Lobster," 140 Years Old, Liberated From Restaurant (SLIDESHOW)

A giant lobster named George escaped a dinner-table fate and was released Saturday into the Atlantic Ocean after a New York seafood restaurant granted him his freedom, according to a statement from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The lobster, which PETA said was 140 years old and weighed 20 pounds, had been confined to a tank at City Crab and Seafood restaurant in Manhattan when two customers alerted the animal group.

 The PETA statement did not say how the extraordinary age estimate was determined, but restaurant manager Keith Valenti told CNN that lobsters can grow a pound every seven to 10 years, and he put George's weight at 18 to 20 pounds.