This elephant, which belonged to the Asian elephant family, was born in 1917 and even served in the Chinese and Japanese armies as a beast of burden from 1937 to 1945 during World War II’s Second Sino Japanese War. After that, Lin Wang was taken to a reserve in China and then in 1952 to Taipei’s Zoo in Taiwan where it became an integral part of the city. He befriended his caretakers and lived happily until 2003. Thanks to his incredibly good physical condition, Lin Wang lived almost 2 decades longer than the average Asian elephant whose life expectancy is set to be about 70 years.