List of the verified oldest men

This is a list of the 100 verified oldest men, arranged in descending order of each individual's age in years and days. A year typically refers to a calendar year, the time between two dates with the same name. However, years may be of different lengths due to the presence or absence of a leap day within the year, or to the conversion of dates from one calendar to another. A supercentenarian is considered 'verified' if his or her claim has been validated by an international body that specifically deals in longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group.

The oldest man ever, whose age has been verified, is Jiroemon Kimura, a Japanese man who died on 12 June 2013 at the age of 116 years, 54 days. There are twoverified living supercentenarians on this list, both of whom live in Japan, the older of whom is Sakari Momoi, age 112 years, 87 days.

100 verified oldest men

      Deceased       Living

Rank	Name	Birth date	Death date	Age (at death, or as of 3 May 2015)	Place of death or residence
1	Jiroemon Kimura	19 April 1897	12 June 2013	116 years, 54 days	Japan
2	Christian Mortensen	16 August 1882	25 April 1998	115 years, 252 days	United States[a]
3	Emiliano Mercado del Toro	21 August 1891	24 January 2007	115 years, 156 days	Puerto Rico
4	Mathew Beard	9 July 1870	16 February 1985	114 years, 222 days	United States
5	Walter Breuning	21 September 1896	14 April 2011	114 years, 205 days	United States
6	Yukichi Chuganji	23 March 1889	28 September 2003	114 years, 189 days	Japan
7	Joan Riudavets	15 December 1889	5 March 2004	114 years, 81 days	Spain
8	Fred Hale	1 December 1890	19 November 2004	113 years, 354 days	United States
9	Johnson Parks	15 October 1884	17 July 1998	113 years, 275 days	United States
10	Tomoji Tanabe	18 September 1895	19 June 2009	113 years, 274 days	Japan
11	John Ingram McMorran	19 June 1889	24 February 2003	113 years, 250 days	United States
12	Frederick Frazier	27 January 1880	14 June 1993	113 years, 138 days	United States
13	James Sisnett	22 February 1900	23 May 2013	113 years, 90 days	Barbados[b]
14	Walter Richardson	7 November 1885	25 December 1998	113 years, 48 days	United States
15	Henry Allingham	6 June 1896	18 July 2009	113 years, 42 days	United Kingdom
16	Antonio Todde	22 January 1889	3 January 2002	112 years, 346 days	Italy
17	Moses Hardy	6 January 1894	7 December 2006	112 years, 335 days	United States
18	John Evans	19 August 1877	10 June 1990	112 years, 295 days	United Kingdom
19	George Francis	6 June 1896	27 December 2008	112 years, 204 days	United States
20	Denzo Ishizaki	20 October 1886	29 April 1999	112 years, 191 days	Japan
21	Josep Armengol	23 July 1881	20 January 1994	112 years, 181 days	Spain
22	Giovanni Frau	29 December 1890	19 June 2003	112 years, 172 days	Italy
23	John Painter	20 September 1888	1 March 2001	112 years, 162 days	United States
24	Alphaeus Philemon Cole	12 July 1876	25 November 1988	112 years, 136 days	United States
25	Augusto Moreira	6 October 1896	13 February 2009	112 years, 130 days	Portugal
26	George Johnson	1 May 1894	30 August 2006	112 years, 121 days	United States
27	Salustiano Sanchez	8 June 1901	13 September 2013	112 years, 97 days	United States[c]
28	Sakari Momoi[1]	5 February 1903	Living[1]	112 years, 87 days	Japan
29	Gengan Tonaki	30 October 1884	24 January 1997	112 years, 86 days	Japan
30	Yasutaro Koide[1]	13 March 1903	Living[1]	112 years, 51 days	Japan
31	Tadanosuke Hashimoto	27 April 1891	31 May 2003	112 years, 34 days	Japan
32	Kumekichi Tani	20 April 1891	12 May 2003	112 years, 22 days	Japan
33	James Wiggins	15 October 1879	16 October 1991	112 years, 1 day	United States
34	Arturo Licata	2 May 1902	24 April 2014	111 years, 357 days	Italy
35	Walter H. Seward	13 October 1896	14 September 2008	111 years, 337 days	United States
36	Maurice Floquet	25 December 1894	10 November 2006	111 years, 320 days	France
37	James McCoubrey	13 September 1901	5 July 2013	111 years, 295 days	United States[d]
38	John Mosely Turner	15 June 1856	21 March 1968	111 years, 280 days	United Kingdom
39	Hermann Dörnemann	27 May 1893	2 March 2005	111 years, 279 days	Germany
40	Antonio Urrea	18 February 1888	15 November 1999	111 years, 270 days	Spain
41	Arthur Carter	5 October 1889	11 June 2001	111 years, 249 days	United States
42	Jan Machiel Reyskens	11 May 1878	7 January 1990	111 years, 241 days	Netherlands[e]
43	Joe Thomas	1 May 1875	14 December 1986	111 years, 227 days	United States
44	James Zackry	15 August 1881	14 March 1993	111 years, 211 days	United States
45	Tanekichi Onishi	15 February 1900	11 September 2011	111 years, 208 days	Japan
46	Kiyoshi Igarashi	2 August 1897	23 February 2009	111 years, 205 days	Japan
47	Herman Smith-Johannsen	15 June 1875	5 January 1987	111 years, 204 days	Norway
48	Ernest Pusey	5 May 1895	19 November 2006	111 years, 198 days	United States
49	Thomas Nelson, Sr.	8 July 1895	9 January 2007	111 years, 185 days	United States
50	Jokichi Ikarashi	26 January 1902	23 July 2013	111 years, 178 days	Japan
51	Earl Brush	17 July 1893	10 January 2005	111 years, 177 days	United States
52	Antonio de Castro	6 January 1898	22 June 2009	111 years, 167 days	Portugal
53	Sukesaburo Nakanishi	15 March 1896	22 August 2007	111 years, 160 days	Japan
54	Luther Goding	1 July 1884	5 December 1995	111 years, 157 days	United States
55	Jan Pieter Bos	12 July 1891	15 December 2002	111 years, 156 days	Netherlands
56	Emile Fourcade	29 July 1884	29 December 1995	111 years, 153 days	France[f]
57	Benjamin Harrison Holcomb	3 July 1889	2 December 2000	111 years, 152 days	United States
58	Aarne Arvonen	4 August 1897	1 January 2009	111 years, 150 days	Finland
59	George Frederick Ives	17 November 1881	12 April 1993	111 years, 146 days	Canada[g]
60	Jan Goossenaerts	30 October 1900	21 March 2012	111 years, 143 days	Belgium
61	Garland Adair	30 July 1898	11 December 2009	111 years, 134 days	United States
62	Anders Engberg	1 July 1892	6 November 2003	111 years, 128 days	Sweden
63	Alexander Imich	4 February 1903	8 June 2014	111 years, 124 days	United States[h]
64	Jack Lockett	22 January 1891	25 May 2002	111 years, 123 days	Australia[i]
65	Henry Hartmann	14 July 1894	10 November 2005	111 years, 119 days	United States
66	Shelby Harris	31 March 1901	25 July 2012	111 years, 116 days	United States
67	Daniel Guzmán-García	6 February 1897	21 May 2008	111 years, 105 days	Colombia
68	Sadayoshi Tanabe	20 October 1888	18 January 2000	111 years, 90 days	Japan
69	Makaru Nakanishi	15 December 1901	28 February 2013	111 years, 75 days	Japan
70	Henry Pfeiffer	22 March 1881	23 May 1992	111 years, 62 days	United States
71	Zachariah Blackistone	16 February 1871	18 April 1982	111 years, 61 days	United States
72	Antonio Baldo	6 July 1887	28 August 1998	111 years, 53 days	Italy
73	Edward Bernard	22 June 1889	11 August 2000	111 years, 50 days	United States
74	Francisco Fernández	24 July 1901	7 September 2012	111 years, 45 days	Spain
75	Norio Kawada	25 April 1892	6 June 2003	111 years, 42 days	Japan
76	Kama Nakasone	23 November 1891	1 January 2003	111 years, 39 days	Japan
77	Harry Patch	17 June 1898	25 July 2009	111 years, 38 days	United Kingdom
78	Peter Solum	3 May 1882	5 June 1993	111 years, 33 days	United States
79	Masao Kaga	1 June 1902	26 June 2013	111 years, 25 days	Japan
80	Giovanni Ligato	18 February 1901	2 March 2012	111 years, 13 days	Italy
81	Domenico Minervino	10 May 1880	22 May 1991	111 years, 12 days	Italy
82	Nijiro Tokuda	10 June 1895	12 June 2006	111 years, 2 days	Japan
83	Valentino Stella	2 January 1886	1 January 1997	110 years, 365 days	Italy
84	Giichi Okumura	18 October 1896	13 October 2007	110 years, 360 days	Japan
85	Charles Shebanek	9 September 1883	27 August 1994	110 years, 352 days	United States
86	Antonio Pierro	22 February 1896	8 February 2007	110 years, 351 days	United States[j]
87	Carl Berner	27 January 1902	7 January 2013	110 years, 346 days	United States[k]
88	Gregory Pandazes	15 January 1873	22 December 1983	110 years, 341 days	United States[l]
	Eiju Tsuru	4 February 1879	11 January 1990	110 years, 341 days	Japan
90	Charlie Nelson	21 September 1867	20 August 1978	110 years, 333 days	United States
	Yoshio Nakagawa	19 December 1901	16 November 2012	110 years, 333 days	Japan
92	Masatake Kinoshita	20 August 1897	17 July 2008	110 years, 332 days	Japan
93	Linus Reinhart	28 July 1892	14 June 2003	110 years, 321 days	United States
94	Lloyd Myers	20 March 1892	1 February 2003	110 years, 318 days	United States
95	Frank Ahmann	11 May 1889	22 March 2000	110 years, 316 days	United States
96	Leopold Vietoris	4 June 1891	9 April 2002	110 years, 309 days	Austria
97	Takashi Hattori	12 March 1898	12 January 2009	110 years, 306 days	Japan
98	Walter Wilcox	1 November 1872	11 August 1983	110 years, 283 days	United States
99	Galo Leoz	22 April 1879	23 January 1990	110 years, 276 days	Spain
100	A.L.M.[2]	11 April 1879	1 January 1990	110 years, 265 days	Spain

a^ Mortensen was born in Denmark.
b^ Sisnett was born in Barbados, which was at the time of his birth a British colony; now it is an independent country.
c^ Sanchez was born in Spain.
d^ McCoubrey was born in Newfoundland, which was then a separate British colony in 1901. It is now a part of Canada.
e^ Reyskens was born in Belgium.
f^ Fourcade was born in French Algeria; it is now Algeria.
g^ Ives was born in the United Kingdom.
h^ Imich was born in Częstochowa, which was then a part of the Russian Empire. It is now in Poland.
i^ Lockett was born in the former British colony Victoria, which is now part of Australia.
j^ Pierro was born in Italy.
k^ Berner was born in Germany.
l^ Pandazes was born in Greece.

The War of the Worlds

On the evening of October 30, 1938, the audience listening to CBS Radio were told they were going to be treated to the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra, broadcast live from the Meridian Room at the Park Plaza in New York City. The performance began, but mere minutes into it a reporter from Intercontinental Radio News interrupted to deliver an important announcement. Astronomers had just detected enormous blue flames shooting up from the surface of Mars.

An undated edition of H.G. Wells' story, from Whitman Publishing. 
Probably from the 1940s.

The broadcast returned to the music of Ramon Raquello, but soon it was interrupted again with more news. Now a strange meteor had fallen to earth, impacting violently on a farm near Grovers Mill, New Jersey. A reporter was soon on hand to describe the eerie scene around the meteor crater, and the broadcast switched over to continuous coverage of this rapidly unfolding event.

To the dismay of the terrified radio audience, the events around the Grovers Mill meteor crater rapidly escalated from the merely strange to the positively ominous. It turned out that the meteor was not a meteor. It was, in fact, a spaceship, out of which a tentacled creature, presumably a Martian, emerged and blasted the onlookers with a deadly heat-ray. 

The Martian sunk back into the crater, but reemerged soon afterwards housed inside a gigantic, three-legged death machine. The Martian quickly disposed of 7,000 armed soldiers surrounding the crater, and then it began marching across the landscape, joined by other Martians. The Martian invaders blasted people and communication lines with their heat-rays, while simultaneously releasing a toxic black gas against which gas masks proved useless.

Mass Panic

Orson Welles in the CBS studios during the broadcast.

Believing that the nation had been invaded by Martians, many listeners panicked. Some people loaded blankets and supplies in their cars and prepared to flee. One mother in New England reportedly packed her babies and lots of bread into a car, figuring that "if everything is burning, you can't eat money, but you can eat bread." Other people hid in cellars, hoping that the poisonous gas would blow over them. One college senior drove forty-five miles at breakneck speed in a valiant attempt to save his girlfriend.

By the time the night was over, however, almost all of these people had learned that the news broadcast was entirely fictitious. It was simply the weekly broadcast of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre. That week, in honor of Halloween, they had decided to stage a highly dramatized and updated version of H.G. Wells' story, The War of the Worlds.

The broadcast reached a huge audience, demonstrating the enormous reach of radio at that time. Approximately six million people heard it. Out of this number it was long thought that almost one million people panicked. More recent research, however, suggests that the number of people who panicked is probably far lower. In fact, some skeptics contend that the idea that the broadcast touched off a huge national scare is more of a hoax than the broadcast itself, which was never intended to fool anyone. (At four separate points during the broadcast, including the beginning, it was clearly stated that what people were hearing was a play.) The idea that hundreds of thousands of people panicked may have arisen because the media exaggerated the figures in order to dramatize the panic.

Reasons for belief

In this famous photo, New Jersey farmer Bill Dock prepares to fight off the invading Martians. The image was actually posed by a Life Magazine photographer a few days after the panic.

Despite the contention that the panic may not have been as widespread as originally thought, many people undeniably did panic. What might have caused them to believe that the broadcast was real?

First, many people tuned in late and missed the announcement made at the beginning of the broadcast that what followed was merely a staged dramatization. By the time a second disclaimer was made, the most alarming portion of the play had already been broadcast.

Second, the global situation in 1938 provided a context that allowed many to believe such a series of events could be unfolding. Tensions in Europe were rising, and it had been very common during the previous three months for radio broadcasts to be interrupted by reporters delivering ominous news from Europe. Many who panicked later explained they had assumed the Martian invasion was a cleverly disguised German attack.

Most of those who panicked were middle-aged or older. Younger listeners tended not to panic because they recognized Orson Welles's voice as the voice of the hero in the popular radio series, The Shadow.

Later Panics

The 1938 broadcast was not the only time a dramatized broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds was mistaken for an account of real events. In November 1944 the play caused a similar panic when it was broadcast in Santiago, Chile, and in February 1949 it once again stirred up unrest when it was performed by a radio station in Quito, Ecuador. The situation in Ecuador provoked an angry mob to surround the radio station and burn it to the ground.

How to hear the broadcast

The original 1938 Mercury Theatre broadcast of the War of the Worlds has been archived and can now be heard on the internet at EarthStation1.com. 

War of the Worlds Haiku (Submitted by Hoax Museum visitors)

The night has grown still. Nothing stirs but that Martian blasting its heat ray. (by AB)	Tripods fire their beams Spreading death and destruction Across the landscape.  (by bobbaxter)
You silly people! Don't you think you'd see a sign if aliens came?  (by Alia)	Aliens shoot, zap and destroy This is surely the end of time. But no, it was a ploy. (by Cuke)

The Boy with the Golden Tooth

In 1593 reports began to spread of a young boy in Silesia, seven-year-old Christoph Müller, who had grown a golden tooth. Jakob Horst, a professor of medicine at Julius University in Helmstedt, decided to investigate. He found the boy did indeed have a gold tooth set firmly in his jaw. Tests with a touchstone (a small tablet of dark stone on which soft metals such as gold leave a visible trace) confirmed the gold was real, though not as high quality, Horst noted, as Hungarian gold. 


Horst wrote a 145-page treatise about the case, De aureo dente maxillari pueri Silesii (Of the Golden Tooth of the Boy from Silesia), in which he attributed the golden tooth to astrological causes. He noted that the boy was born on December 22, 1585, when there was an unusual alignment of the planets that must have increased the heat of the sun, causing the bone in the boy's jaw to turn to gold. He also argued that the tooth was a portent of important events to come: the dawn of a new golden age for the Holy Roman Empire. However, because the tooth was located on the boy's left side, considered to be the sinister side, the golden age would be preceded by many calamities.

Jakob Horst's De aureo dente maxillari pueri Silesii

Not all doctors agreed with Horst's opinion. Duncan Liddell, a Scottish physician living in Helmstedt, published his own analysis of the case, Tractatus de dente aureo pueri Silesiani, in which he argued that the boy's golden tooth had to be man-made.

Time confirmed Liddell's analysis to be correct. The daily pressure of chewing, combined with the repeated tests with a touchstone, wore down the gold enough to reveal that it was merely a thin layer of metal skillfully fitted over the boy's tooth. At first the boy attempted to conceal this by refusing to allow any more learned gentlemen to examine his tooth. However, a drunken nobleman became enraged when his request to see the tooth was refused, and he stabbed the boy in the cheek. When a doctor came to suture the wound, he discovered the fraud.

Christoph was taken to prison, and the man who fitted the gold layer over his tooth reportedly fled. But despite having been created for deceptive, not therapeutic, reasons, the golden tooth earned a distinguished place in the history of dentistry. It is considered to be the first documented case of the creation of a gold crown for a tooth. 

The Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar

On April 28, 1874, the New York World ran an article announcing the discovery in Madagascar of a remarkable new species of plant: a man-eating tree. The article included a gruesome description of a woman fed to the plant by members of the Mkodos tribe. Numerous newspapers and magazines reprinted the article, but 14 years later the journalCurrent Literature revealed the story to be a work of fiction written by NY World reporter Edmund Spencer. 

Depiction of the man-eating tree, 
from the front cover of Madagascar: Land of the Man-Eating Tree

But despite having been debunked, the story of the man-eating tree refused to die. In fact, it became one of the most enduring hoaxes of the 19th Century, continuing to circulate as fact for decades afterwards. During the 20th Century, several explorers even searched for the man-eating tree in Madagascar. Meanwhile, the identity of the author of the story was completely forgotten and was only recovered when the Current Literature journal was scanned and made available online during the 21st Century.

The Story

The NY World claimed to have obtained its information about the man-eating tree from "the last number of Graefe and Walther's Magazine, published at Carlsruhe," in which there was a letter from the discoverer, the "eminent botanist" Karl Leche, to a colleague, Dr. Omelius Friedlowsky. Most of the NY World article consisted of the text of Leche's letter. 

The beginning of the NY World article

In the letter, Leche described how while traveling through Madagascar he came into a region of the country occupied by the Mkodos, "a tribe of inhospitable savages of whom little was known."

As Leche and his party walked along, they noticed that members of the Mkodos tribe were silently emerging from the jungle and following behind them. They came to a spot where a stream wound through the forest, and here they encountered "the most singular of trees." Leche provided a detailed description of it:

If you can imagine a pineapple eight feet high and thick in proportion resting upon its base and denuded of leaves, you will have a good idea of the trunk of the tree, which, however, was not the color of an anana, but a dark, dingy brown, and apparently hard as iron. From the apex of this truncated cone (at least two feet in diameter) eight leaves hung sheer to the ground, like doors swung back on their hinges. These leaves, which were joined to the top of the tree at regular intervals, were about eleven or twelve feet long and shaped very much like the leaves of the American aguave, or century plant. They were two feet through in their thickest part and three feet wide, tapering to a sharp point that looked like a cow's horn, very convex on the outer (but now under) surface, and on the inner (now upper) surface slightly concave. This concave face was thickly set with very strong thorny hooks, like those upon the head of the teazle. These leaves, hanging thus limp and lifeless, dead green in color, had in appearance the massive strength of oak fibre.

The apex of the cone was a round, white, concave figure, like a smaller plate set within a larger one. This was not a flower but a receptacle, and there exuded into it a clear, treacly liquid, honeysweet, and possessed of violent intoxicating and soporific properties. From underneath the rim (so to speak) of the undermost plate a series of long, hairy green tendrils stretched out in every direction towards the horizon. These were seven or eight feet long each, and tapered from four inches to a half an inch in diameter, yet they stretched out stiffly as iron rods. Above these (from between the upper and under cup) six white, almost transparent palpi reared themselves towards the sky, twirling and twisting with a marvelous incessant motion, yet constantly reaching upwards. Thin as reeds, and frail as quills apparently, they were yet five or six feet tall, and were so constantly and vigorously in motion, with such a subtle, sinuous, silent throbbing against the air, that they made me shudder in spite of myself with their suggestion of serpent flayed, yet dancing on their tails.

The Mkodos, when they saw the tree, began shouting, "Tepe! Tepe!" Then they surrounded one of their women and forced her, at javelin point, to climb the tree until she reached the apex of the cone that contained the treacly fluid. "Tsik! tsik!" the Mkodos men cried, which meant "drink! drink!"

Obediently, she drank, and then, almost instantly, the slender palpi of the tree came alive, quivered, and seized her around her neck and arms. She screamed, but the tendrils gripped her tighter, strangling her, until her cries became a gurgled moan. The contraction of the tendrils caused the fluid of the tree to stream down its trunk, mingling with the "blood and oozing viscera of the victim." 

The Mkodos rushed forward to drink this mixture of blood and tree fluid. Then ensued "a grotesque and indescribably hideous orgie."

Leche concluded his letter by explaining that he studied the carnivorous tree for three more weeks, during which time he found several other, smaller specimens of it in the forest. He saw one of the trees eat a lemur. 

He named the species Crinoida Dajeeana, because "when its leaves are in action it bears a striking resemblance to that well-known fossil the crinoid lilystone, or St. Cuthbert's beads." Dajeeana referred to Dr. Bhawoo Dajee, a "liberal-minded, intelligent Parsee physician of Bombay."

An ancient map of Madagascar, from Madagascar: Land of the Man-Eating Tree

What Was True, What Was False

Karl Ferdinand von Graefe

Almost every detail in the story was fictitious. None of the people who were mentioned in it existed — not Karl Leche, Dr. Omelius Friedlowsky, or Dr. Bhawoo Dajee. Nor were the Mkodos a real tribe. The tree itself, most significantly, was pure fantasy — a gothic horror of the colonial era.

However, the source to which the story was credited — "Graefe and Walther's Magazine, published at Carlsruhe" — was a real publication. Or, at least, there was a scientific journal founded by two prestigious German surgeons, Karl Ferdinand von Graefe andPhilipp Franz von Walther, titled Journal der Chirurgie und Augenheilkunde (The Surgical and Ophthalmic Journal). 

However, this journal was published in Berlin, not Carlsruhe. Also, it began publication in 1820 and ended in 1850, following the death of Walther. So by 1874, there hadn't been a new issue of the journal for 24 years. In other words, this journal was NOT the original source of the man-eating tree story.

Initial Reception and Exposure

Upon its publication, the man-eating tree story immediately attracted attention, and many other newspapers reprinted it for the benefit of their readers. The June 1874 issue of The Garden magazine noted, "There is a harrowing description of a man-eating plant going the rounds of the papers."

Unlike most media hoaxes of the 19th Century, which attracted attention for a few weeks and then were forgotten, interest in the man-eating tree endured. Several years later, reprints of the story were still appearing in magazines such as Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours and The Farmer's Magazine.

There were notes of skepticism. For instance, in February 1875 the Christian Union noted, "The World published a very clever hoax about the 'Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar.' No doubt many a credulous reader was taken in thereby."

But it wasn't until 1888 that the story was fully exposed as a hoax, and its author identified. In 1888, Frederick Maxwell Somers had launched a new magazine, Current Literature, and in the second issue he reprinted the story of the man-eating tree and provided information about its origin:

It was written years ago by Mr. Edmund Spencer for the N.Y. World. While Mr. Spencer was connected with that paper he wrote a number of stories, all being remarkable for their appearance of truth, the extraordinary imagination displayed, and for their somber tone. Mr. Spencer was a master of the horrible, some of his stories approaching closely to those of Poe in this regard. Like many clever men his best work is hidden in the files of the daily press. This particular story of the Crinoida Dajeeana, the Devil Tree of Madagascar, was copied far and wide, and caused many a hunt for the words of Dr. Friedlowsky. It was written as the result of a talk with some friends, during which Mr. Spencer maintained that all that was necessary to produce a sensation of horror in the reader was to greatly exaggerate some well-known and perhaps beautiful thing. He then stated that he would show what could be done with the sensitive plant when this method of treatment was applied to it. The devil-tree is, after all, only a monstrous variety of the 'Venus fly trap' so common in North Carolina. Mr. Spencer died about two years ago in Baltimore, Md.

No other record has ever been found of the existence of Mr. Edmund Spencer of the N.Y. World. However, Somers was highly knowledgeable about the New York literary scene, so there's no reason his information shouldn't be accepted as credible.

However, Somers' revelation went entirely unnoticed. Throughout the 1890s, the man-eating tree story continued to appear in magazines, but none mentioned that Spencer was the author. By the 20th Century, the NY World wasn't even being identified as the original publisher of the tale. This caused enormous confusion to researchers throughout the 20th Century who came across the story and tried to track down its source.

It wasn't until the 21st Century, when issues of Current Literature became searchable via Google Books, that Somers' information about the identity of the hoax's author reemerged.

In Search of the Man-Eating Tree

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of explorers searched for the man-eating tree in Madagascar, not realizing that the story was a NY World hoax. 

Frank Vincent: The first man-eating-tree searcher was the American travel writer Frank Vincent, author of Actual Africa. He traveled throughout Madagascar during the early 1890s, and while he wasn't there specifically to search for the man-eating tree, he later told reporters that he did ask around about it "for his own personal satisfaction". However, he couldn't find it and concluded that accounts of it were "the purest Munchausenism". 

Chase Salmon Osborn: Osborn, who served as Governor of Michigan from 1911 to 1913, conducted the most extensive search for the man-eating tree. His travels through Madagascar resulted in his 1924 book, Madagascar: Land of the Man-Eating Tree. However, he never found the tree. He wrote in the book's introduction:

In travelling from one end of Madagascar to the other a thousand miles and across the great island, many times traversing the nearly four hundred miles of breadth, I did not see a man-eating tree. But from all the peoples I met, including Hovas, Sakalavas, Sihanakas, Betsileos and others, I heard stories and myths about it. To be sure the missionaries say it does not exist, but they are not united in this opinion, despite the fact that it is properly their affair and responsibility to discredit and destroy anything and everything that fosters demonism and idolatry. No missionary told me that he had seen the devil tree, but several told me that they could not understand how all the tribes could believe so earnestly in it, and over hundreds of miles where intercourse has been both difficult and dangerous, unless there were some foundation for the belief.

However, Osborn also admitted that his primary purpose in titling his book after the tree was simply to capture the attention of readers. The majority of his book did not deal with the tree:

I do not know whether this tigerish tree really exists or whether the bloodcurdling stories about it are pure myth. It is enough for my purpose if its story focuses your interest upon one of the least known spots of the world.

Ralph Linton: The anthropologist Ralph Linton spent several years in Madagascar during the 1920s. While he also wasn't there specifically to look for the tree, he apparently did ask around about it. Newspapers reported that, "He encountered several persons who believed that such a thing existed, but the tree was always in some other part of the country, and he arrived at the conclusion that the story was a myth." He was also quoted as saying that the story was "ridiculous and always was," but that, based on his experience in Madagascar, he would be willing to believe the island was home to man-eating fleas.

Capt. V. de la Motte Hurst: In August 1932, a United Press wire story reported that Capt. V. de la Motte Hurst, who was said to be a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, was going to lead an expedition to Madagascar specifically to hunt for the man-eating tree, which he referred to as the "sacrifice tree." De la Motte Hurst was quoted as saying, "I have been told about the tree by many chiefs of the island and I have no doubt of its existence. It eats human beings, but since the natives worship it they are reluctant to reveal its location." He also planned to take along a movie camera to film the tree sacrifice. However, it's not clear if de la Motte Hurst's expedition ever left. At least, no more was ever heard of it.

Article in the Washington Reporter, Aug 18, 1932

Willy Ley: During the 1950s, science writer Willy Ley came across the story of the man-eating tree, and while he didn't travel to Madagascar to search for the tree, he did conduct an extensive bibliographic search to hunt down the origin of the story. He realized that the story had to be a hoax. However, he arrived at some erroneous conclusions about the history of the story.

Ley knew that the story had once appeared in the NY World, but he didn't know that the story had originated there, so he didn't focus his search on that publication, noting that, "copies of newspapers three-quarters of a century old are hard to come by." Instead, he tried to discover the origin of the story by tracking down clues within the text itself. For instance, he conducted an extensive search for references to Karl Leche and Dr. Omelius Friedlowsky, eventually concluding that neither man existed. 

Next, Ley focused on trying to track down "the elusive Carlsruhe Scientific Journal." This journal actually did once exist (see above), but Ley couldn't find any record of it in the Library of Congress, so he concluded that it too was fictitious.

Ley carefully searched through 17th and 18th Century reference works about Madagascar to see if any of them mentioned a man-eating tree, but he found nothing.

Finally, Ley discovered that the story of the man-eating tree had been published in theAntananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine for the Year 1881, and he mistakenly concluded that this was the original source of the story. He hypothesized: 

"Of course the man-eating tree does not exist. There is no such tribe. The actual natives of Madagascar do not have such a legend. But at one time somebody made up the hoax, which was put into the only existing local magazine, possibly as a joke of some kind for the amusement of the readers who knew better. But it then got out of hand and the perpetrators thought it best to keep quiet."

Other Man-Eating Plants

The popularity of the man-eating plant of Madagascar led to reports of other carnivorous plants. For instance, in October 1891, London newspapers reported that a British naturalist, Mr. Dunstan, had encountered a "vampire vine" while in Nicaragua:

It appears that a Mr. Dunstan, a naturalist, has lately returned from Central America, where he spent two years in the study of the plants and animals of those regions. In one of the swamps which surround the great Nicaragua Lake, he discovered the singular growth of which we are writing. 'He was engaged in hunting for botanical and entomological specimens, when he hears his dog cry out, as if in agony, from a distance. Running to the spot whence the animal's cries came, Mr. Dunstan found him enveloped in a perfect network of what seemed to be a fine, rope-like tissue of roots and fibres. The plant or vine seemed composed entirely of bare, interlacing stems, resembling, more than anything else, the branches of the weeping-willow denuded of its foliage, but of a dark, nearly black hue, and covered with a thick, viscid gum that exuded from the pores.' Drawing his knife, Mr. Dunstan attempted to cut the poor beast free; but it was with the very greatest difficulty that he managed to sever the fleshy muscular fibres of the plant. When the dog was extricated from the coils of the plant, Mr. Dunstan saw, to his horror and amazement, that the dog's body was bloodstained, 'while the skin appeared to have been actually sucked or puckered in spots,' and the animal staggered as if from exhaustion. 'In cutting the vine, the twigs curled like living, sinuous fingers about Mr. Dunstan's hand, and it required no slight force to free the member from its clinging grasp, which left the flesh red and blistered.

And in Sea and Land (1887), J.W. Buel included a description and image of a Ya-Te-Veo tree, that was said to grow in South America. It supposedly caught and consumed humans by means of its long tendrils.

Ron Sullivan and Jon Eaton, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007, noted that the man-eating tree of Madagascar served as the "progenitor of a whole literary dynasty of sinister plants." These included: "H.G. Wells' Strange Orchid (it stupefied its victims with perfume and sucked their blood with its tendrils); John Wyndham's peripatetic Triffids; the Widow's Weed in Gus Arriola's 'Gordo' comic strip; and, not least, Audrey II of 'Little Shop of Horrors.'"