Tag Archives: tortoise

May 08 2024
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Jonathan, revisited

Tuesday 7th May 2024, 12.05pm (day 4,639)

Jonathan again, 7/5/24

I took the morning off and came up to Plantation House, the residence of the Governor of St Helena, to do the tour, and like the other 7 people doing it with me, we stoically let ourselves be shown vaguely interesting items of furniture and portraits of the British royal family for 90 minutes or so in order that we could then get through to the real reason we were all there; to have the honour of meeting Jonathan, who at around 192 is the world’s oldest living land animal whose age is (more or less) known. And he did not seem at all bothered by his weekly dose of humans — seeming as interested in us as we were in him. I think he’s a complete dude, and could not resist making him the day’s image even though he’s appeared before. But he totally deserves his relative fame, if you ask me.

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Nov 30 2021
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Jonathan — world’s oldest living land animal

Sunday 28th November 2021, 3.10pm (day 3,748)

Jonathan is a giant tortoise, originally from the Seychelles but resident at Plantation House in St Helena since the 1880s. It is not known exactly how old he is but there is good documentation that he is at least 189 years old, and possibly older. This makes him the oldest land animal on the whole planet, at least among those for which there is evidence.

I was thinking at first, it’s a shame that he doesn’t know he’s a record breaker. But — you know — he looks like such a cool dude, that I think he probably does.

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