Jonathan, the Oldest Turtle in the World

On St Helena — the remote South Atlantic island best known as Napoleon’s place of exile — lives the world’s oldest known land animal: an Aldabra giant tortoise named Jonathan.

Jonathan is believed to have hatched around 1832. Records show he arrived on St Helena from the Seychelles in 1882 already fully mature, which puts his birth year at 1832 at the latest. That makes him over 190 years old, and Guinness World Records recognizes him as the oldest living land animal on Earth.

A 19th-century photograph survives showing a tortoise believed to be Jonathan — the equivalent of someone photographed in the 1880s still being alive today. He is now blind from cataracts and has lost his sense of smell, but his hearing is sharp, and he responds readily to the voice of the vet who cares for him. He spends his days on the lawn of the governor’s residence, working through cabbages and carrots.

For the historical record, a radiated tortoise named Tu’i Malila, kept by the Tongan royal family and said to have been a gift from Captain Cook, lived an estimated 188 years. Not quite the “ten thousand years” of the Japanese proverb — but turtles genuinely do live on a different clock from ours.

The secret seems to be a slow metabolism, the low predation that comes with carrying a fortress on your back, and remarkably slow cellular aging even after growth stops. Turtle time simply flows more slowly than human time.