That's exactly what fascinates me. 500 years or more? wow. let's protect that.
There's a distinct possibility my cat will outlive me. I made sure he'd be fine and taken care of.
My Dad won an African Grey parrot in 1954 on a boat ride to South America (in a Skat game, a quite complicated German card game). I have pictures of him as a young man with the parrot on his shoulder. I have pictures of him as an older man, with the parrot looking the exact darn same on his shoulder. The parrot outlived him. My mom wanted me to take the parrot with me. But for some reason the parrot never liked me (he'd bite the living crap out of me every time I tried to befriend him - in fact I think it's the only creature [ex wifes excepted] that never liked me), plus the fact it talked and whistled like my Dad was creepy when my Dad died. It is *still* alive in the zoo in Barcelona, the species is protected and we donated "him". We always thought it was a "him", turns out it layed eggs as soon as it was among other Grey African parrots, and helped the species! It's 80 years old or so now. It'd probably still bite me, I visited 5 years ago and it looked at me meanly. They are smart as hell too.