World’s oldest tortoise alive despite death rumours
Reports of the death of the world’s oldest living land animal – the nearly 200-year-old turtle – were greatly exaggerated.
Jonathan, believed to be 193 years old, is still kicking around, albeit slowly, on the island of St Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean.
“It was a hoax,” Anne Dillon, the island’s communications director, told The Associated Press on Thursday about his alleged passing.
“I don’t have all those details, I can just assure you that he is very much alive.”
News of the turtle’s death spread quickly on social media on April Fool’s Day.
An account on
The post quickly garnered nearly two million views by Thursday; Condolences poured in mostly.
But Hollins later said he didn’t even have an X account on Facebook and that something worse was coming.
“There’s a hoax going around – it’s not even an April Fool’s joke,” Hollins wrote.
“The fraudster is asking for crypto donations. It’s a scam.”
#JonathanTheTortoise is alive and well. He remains St Helena’s most famous resident. To clarify that the latest claims circulating on social media are false. Plan your St Helena trip and visit Jonathan at Plantation#StHelena #StHelenaIsland #SouthAtlanticOcean pic.twitter.com/hFobAdRXBv— St Helena Tourism (@sthelenatourism) April 2, 2026
Guinness World Records lists Jonathan, the Seychelles giant tortoise, as the oldest living land animal and the oldest tortoise ever.
He was believed to be around 50 years old when he was brought to St Helena in 1882.
Dillon said the tortoise still hangs around the governor’s residence on the island, known as the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled after his defeat by the British at Waterloo in 1815.
Bonaparte died there in 1821, a decade before Jonathan is believed to have taken the first steps in what would become a very long life.
