The oldest animal in the world has just celebrated another trip around the sun, as he turned 190 years young on December 4th.
Jonathan the tortoise lives in Saint Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic. He has lived on this remote island since 1882, when Queen Victoria was still on the phone. And whilst he has spent the past 140 years on this remote island, he actually spent his youth- the first fifty years of his life- on the Seychelles.
As a Seychelles giant tortoise, Jonathan is indigenous to the Seychelles, Africa’s smallest country. He, and several other tortoises, were gifted to the governor of Saint Helena in 1882. He still lives in the grounds of the governor’s house today.
In defiance of the officially declared 190th milestone, whispers persist that Jonathan, the venerable Seychelles giant tortoise, might boast an age surpassing even this august number. Traditionally, these tortoises reach their zenith at the age of fifty, a point at which growth grinds to a halt. In 1882, when Jonathan took up residence on Saint Helena, he had already attained this pinnacle, measuring an imposing 120 cm. His precise birthdate remains shrouded in enigma, but in the past month, the incumbent governor of Saint Helena designated December 4 as the ceremonious day.
To honor this cryptic occasion, the island plunged into a three-day revelry. While the concept of throwing a lavish affair for a tortoise might border on eccentric, Jonathan is no ordinary chelonian. Elevated to the prestigious title of the oldest living being in The Guinness Book of Records and enshrined as a symbolic figure for this petite nation, it seems only apt that Jonathan’s visage graces the coinage, embellishing the reverse side of the Saint Helena five pence coin.
The weight of his advanced years has draped Jonathan in the shroud of blindness, courtesy of cataracts. Nevertheless, solitude is not his sole companion. Three fellow tortoises share his verdant haven, though not the same cohorts that accompanied him on his odyssey to Saint Helena in 1882. Amongst his comrades are Emma and David, both seasoned at 54, and the comparatively youthful Frederika, a mere 31 revolutions around the sun old.