{"id":649326,"date":"2026-06-20T17:51:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649326\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T17:51:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:51:14","slug":"194-year-old-tortoise-becomes-worlds-oldest-known-land-animal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649326\/","title":{"rendered":"194-Year-Old Tortoise Becomes World&#8217;s Oldest Known Land Animal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some animals live much longer than humans, but one tortoise has lived through nearly two centuries. Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise from St Helena, is now recognised as the oldest-known terrestrial animal and the oldest turtle ever recorded, reported<a class=\"sp_lnk2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.guinnessworldrecords.com\/news\/icons\/jonathan-the-tortoise-the-oldest-terrestrial-animal\" rel=\"noindex,nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0Guinness World Records.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jonathan is 194 years old. Born around 1832, he is older than the Victorian Age, London&#8217;s Tower Bridge, and Paris&#8217;s Eiffel Tower. The Seychelles giant tortoise, scientifically known as Aldabrachelys gigantea Hololissa, currently lives on the South Atlantic island of St Helena.<\/p>\n<p>Watch Video Here:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Jonathan the tortoise is officially a Guinness World Records ICON \u2728<\/p>\n<p>Believed to have been born c. 1832, Jonathan is the oldest living land animal at the grand old age of 194 years. He is a Seychelles giant tortoise and the average life expectancy of his species is 150. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WqxBrM4Z8H\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/WqxBrM4Z8H<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Guinness World Records (@GWR) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GWR\/status\/2067166414029427107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 17, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Despite his advanced age, local veterinarians say Jonathan is in good condition and has a healthy appetite, even though he has lost his sense of smell because of old age.<\/p>\n<p>Experts are also studying Jonathan&#8217;s DNA because his cells do not appear to mutate in the same way as human cells. They hope the research may reveal useful information,\u00a0reported<a class=\"sp_lnk2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.guinnessworldrecords.com\/news\/icons\/jonathan-the-tortoise-the-oldest-terrestrial-animal\" rel=\"noindex,nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0Guinness World Records.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, Jonathan, affectionately known as &#8220;Jono&#8221; by local residents, continues to spend his days peacefully with three other tortoises in the gardens of the Governor&#8217;s residence. He enjoys eating grass and basking in the sunshine.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan is also known for celebrating his birthday with a vegan cake.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                                                            <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some animals live much longer than humans, but one tortoise has lived through nearly two centuries. Jonathan, a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[218576,3795,218574,218575,90,218577,218578,56,54,55,4407,4416,16619],"class_list":["post-649326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-giant-tortoise","tag-guinness-world-records","tag-jonathan-tortoise","tag-oldest-terrestrial-animal","tag-science","tag-st-helena","tag-tortoise-dna","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-conservation","tag-world-record"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}