Who Is Jonathan the Tortoise? The Oldest Known Land Animal

Who is Jonathan?

Jonathan is a male Seychelles giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea hololissa), a form that most experts now treat as a subspecies of the Aldabra giant tortoise. Seychelles giant tortoises once lived on the granite islands of the Seychelles, such as Mahé and Praslin, but were wiped out in the wild in the 1800s by sailors and settlers who collected them for food.

Jonathan lives in the grounds of Plantation House, the official residence of the governor of Saint Helena, a British Overseas Territory about 1,900 km (1,200 mi) off the coast of southwestern Africa. He spends his days grazing the lawns and paddocks, resting in the sun and sharing the grounds with a few other giant tortoises.

He has become an island celebrity. He appears on the back of Saint Helena’s five-pence coin, has featured on postage stamps, and visitors to the island often make a special trip to see him.

How did Jonathan get to Saint Helena?

In 1882 Jonathan and three other tortoises were shipped from the Seychelles, then administered from the British colony of Mauritius, to Saint Helena. They were a gift to Sir William Grey-Wilson, who later became governor of the island. Moving giant tortoises between colonies as gifts was common in the 19th century.

Jonathan did not get his name straight away. He was named in the 1930s by Governor Sir Spencer Davis, and since arriving he has lived through the terms of more than 30 governors. He has met visiting royalty several times, including King George VI and the future Queen Elizabeth II in 1947.

A popular myth links Jonathan to Napoleon, who was exiled to Saint Helena and died there in 1821. The dates make this impossible: Napoleon had been dead for about ten years before Jonathan is thought to have hatched and for more than 60 years before Jonathan reached the island.

How do we know how old Jonathan is?

No one recorded Jonathan’s hatching. His age is estimated from the condition he was in when he arrived. Records describe him as fully mature in 1882, and giant tortoises take several decades to reach full size, so he is thought to have been at least about 50 years old. That gives a hatching year of about 1832 or earlier.

An old photograph supports this. A picture of Jonathan grazing near Plantation House, once thought to date from 1902, was later shown to have been taken in about 1886, just four years after his arrival. Measurements from the photo show he was already a fully grown adult by then.

Because the estimate is a minimum, Jonathan could be older than 194, but not reliably younger. His exact hatching date is unknown, so in 2022 Governor Nigel Phillips gave him an official birthday of 4 December. That year Saint Helena marked his estimated 190th birthday with celebrations, commemorative stamps and certificates showing his “first footprint”.

Jonathan’s world records

Guinness World Records lists Jonathan as the oldest living land animal. In 2022 his estimated age passed that of Tu’i Malila, a radiated tortoise kept by the royal family of Tonga that died in 1966; a story that she was a gift from Captain Cook in 1777 has never been confirmed. Guinness then also named Jonathan the oldest chelonian ever recorded, a group that includes all turtles and tortoises.

Some tortoises have been credited with even longer lives. Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise at Kolkata Zoo in India that died in 2006, was claimed to be about 255 years old, but the claim rests on stories rather than records. For other long-lived species, including the Greenland shark and bowhead whale, see longest-living animals.

How does Jonathan live today?

Old age has taken its toll. Jonathan is blind from cataracts and has lost his sense of smell, so he cannot easily find food by himself, but he still has good hearing and responds to the voices of the people who care for him. He is looked after by the island’s government veterinary staff.

Since the mid-2010s he has been given a regular hand-fed meal of fruit and vegetables in addition to grazing, which improved his condition after he had become thin and weak. Like all giant tortoises, he slows down in cool weather and spends cold days resting, becoming more active on warm, sunny days.

Jonathan has company. He has lived for decades alongside other giant tortoises at Plantation House, including Frederik, a tortoise introduced in 1991 that was long thought to be female but turned out to be male. In April 2026 a fake social media account falsely announced his death; news outlets soon confirmed it was a hoax and that Jonathan was alive.

Why do giant tortoises live so long?

Giant tortoises are among the longest-lived vertebrates on Earth. Scientists link this to several traits: a very slow metabolism, slow growth over decades, a protective shell that keeps adult mortality low, and, according to genetic studies, efficient systems for repairing damaged cells and DNA.

Island life also plays a part. On islands without large predators, natural selection favored tortoises that grew big, matured late and kept breeding for a very long time. The same pattern is seen in the Galápagos giant tortoise, whose most famous individual, Lonesome George, lived for around a century.