Aging Like A Turtle! Meet Jonathan The 191 Year Old Tortoise
Aging like a … turtle, very slowly!
Happy birthday to Jonathan the oldest living tortoise at 191 years old. That’s 10 years shy of living two centuries and reports are that he is doing great and not slowing down a bit. There’s a really good chance he will live past the 200 mark.
Jonathan is a Seychelles giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea hololissa), a subspecies of the Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea); he is the oldest known living land animal. He resides on the island of Saint Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean.
He’s lived through a lot!
Jonathan was around when Darwin wrote his book “On The Origins Of Species” in 1859. Darwin’s novel theory was that populations evolve over the course of generations through the process of natural selection. Well that would bode well for Jonathan because he certainly outlived Darwin and over 40 United States Presidents as well.
He was born as far we know in 1834, which was 25 before the Civil War. The old timer has lived through 2 World Wars, the inventions of both automobiles and aero planes. Jonathan has lived longer than more the life expectancy of nearly three human lives.
Jonathan still lives a very full life
According to the website Wikipedia On December 2015, the St Helena vet Joe Hollins said that Jonathan was “alive and well […] He’s blind from cataracts, has lost his sense of smell, and so cannot detect food (his fellow giants mug him and can detect the tiniest morsel dropped on the ground), but he has retained excellent hearing.”[1] In January 2016, the BBC reported that Jonathan was given a new diet intended to keep him healthy and extend his life.[13] Due to his old age, Jonathan spends his days doing almost everything with his mate, including eating, sleeping and mating.[1
Happy birthday Jonathan!
To celebrate his birthday this year he was given tons of his favorite fruits and veggies and enjoyed his world wide fame. Maybe he got to hang out with one his mates, because we hear that he still enjoys the company of a female tortoise or two.
Here is a video of Jonathan last year when he turned 190!