Overland Park ? Mike Conley was about 8 years old when his parents bought him a 49-cent drugstore turtle.

Forty years later, Tiger could be the world’s oldest Red-eared Slider. The record had been 37 years, 9 months and 10 days, said Joseph Collins, herpetologist emeritus at the Kansas University Natural History Museum.

“It’s pretty amazing that it’s lived that long,” Collins said. “I think it’s really great that they have the world’s oldest Slider.”

Conley, now 47, still checks on Tiger when he visits his parents at their suburban Kansas City home. Once about the size of a half dollar, Tiger has grown to measure about 8 inches by 10 inches and now calls a metal washtub home.

“It’s really incredible,” said Conley, who now lives in Dallas. “I tell people  when it comes up in the conversation  ‘Remember those itty-bitty, quarter-size turtles you got at the drugstore? I still have mine.’

“Their jaws always drop.”

Roy and Tena Mae Conley didn’t keep the receipt for Tiger, but they remember buying him at a Katz Drug store when their son was around 8.

“Everyone got turtles,” Mike Conley said. “They always died, or people would get tired of them and throw them in the lake. This one, we kept.”

Nancy Flagg of Olathe said she played with Tiger before her family moved out of the neighborhood in 1964.

“What a humanitarian to take care of a turtle for so long,” said Flagg, 43. “They’re so kind and considerate.”

Tiger dines on dry turtle food, lettuce, raw hamburger and an occasional bug. When the weather is nice, the couple take Tiger’s washtub onto the patio or let him wander in the grass.