{"id":378543,"date":"2026-04-02T16:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378543\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T16:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:50:08","slug":"worlds-oldest-known-tortoise-is-still-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378543\/","title":{"rendered":"World’s oldest known tortoise is still alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Reports on April Fools\u2019 Day of the death of the world\u2019s oldest living land animal \u2014 a 193-year-old tortoise<\/a> called Jonathan \u2014 were greatly exaggerated.<\/p>\n

Jonathan is still kicking \u2014 albeit slowly \u2014 on the island of St. Helena<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hoax,\u201d Anne Dillon, head of communications on the island, told The Associated Press on Thursday. \u201cI can just assure you that he is very much alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of the Seychelles giant tortoise\u2019s demise spread rapidly on social media on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

An account on X, falsely claiming to be by Joe Hollins, a veterinarian who had worked with the reptile on the island in the south Atlantic Ocean between Africa and Brazil, said he was heartbroken to announce the death of the \u201cgentle giant\u201d that \u201coutlived empires, wars, and generations of humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post quickly accumulated nearly 2 million views through Thursday, mostly an outpouring of condolences.<\/p>\n

But Hollins later said on Facebook that he didn\u2019t even have an X account and something more sinister was afoot. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a hoax \u2014 not even an April Fool<\/a> \u2014 going around,\u201d Hollins wrote. \u201cThe hoaxer is asking for crypto donations. It\u2019s a con.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guinness World Records<\/a> lists Jonathan as the oldest living land animal and the oldest tortoise ever. He was believed to be about 50 years old when he was brought to St. Helena in 1882.<\/p>\n

The St. Helena government sent a photo of Jonathan taken Thursday of him roaming the grounds of the governor\u2019s residence on the island best known as the place Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled following his defeat by the British at Waterloo<\/a> in 1815. It was the place where the former emperor of France died in 1821, about a decade before Jonathan is believed to have taken the first steps in what would become a very long life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Reports on April Fools\u2019 Day of the death of the world\u2019s oldest living land animal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[264,169298,169300,1595,61,60,169301,14440,82,24789,169299,2755,263,268],"class_list":{"0":"post-378543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-anne-dillon","10":"tag-ascension-and-tristan-da-cunha","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-joe-hollins","15":"tag-oddities","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-seychelles","18":"tag-st-helena","19":"tag-veterinary-medicine","20":"tag-wildlife","21":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}