He was already fully grown in 1886. Jonathan the tortoise is still eating lunch

There is a photograph of Jonathan from the 1880s. He is chewing grass. A few people from St Helena stand around him in a garden.

Jonathan still lives in that garden.

He is a giant tortoise and the oldest land animal alive. Guinness World Records says he was hatched around 1832, which makes him 194 in 2026. Some headlines already round him up to 195.

He was fully grown in the old photo. So how is he still alive?

Who is Jonathan the tortoise?

Jonathan is a Seychelles giant tortoise, says Guinness. He lives at Plantation House, the home of the governor of St Helena. That is a tiny island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, far from everything. It is nearly 2,000 km from the coast of Africa, and about 4,400 people live there.

Jonathan did not travel alone. Sources say three other tortoises came on the same ship from the Seychelles in 1882. Today he shares the grounds with younger tortoises, among them one called Emma.

He was brought there in 1882 from the Seychelles, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean. He lives there still.

Guinness calls him the oldest known living land animal. The record is for "oldest tortoise," but it also means he is older than any other animal that walks on land.

How do we know how old he is?

Nobody wrote down the day he hatched. His age is worked out from the old records.

When he reached St Helena in 1882, he was described as "fully mature." Guinness takes that to mean he was at least 50. Take 50 from 1882 and you get a birth year of about 1832.

Guinness adds something important. It calls the age on arrival a conservative estimate.

What has Jonathan lived through?

The table below sets out his life by year. The dates come from Guinness, PetaPixel and NPR.

He was already a grown tortoise when the 1886 photo was taken. By 2026 he has spent 144 years on St Helena alone.

Other things happened around him too. The Statue of Liberty was unveiled in New York in 1886, the same year as the photo. South African readers may know that thousands of Boer prisoners of war were held on St Helena between 1900 and 1902. Jonathan was already about 70 then.

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The island is famous for something else. Napoleon was sent there as a prisoner and died there in 1821. That was about eleven years before Jonathan hatched.

Photo: Luke McKernan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

What does a 194-year-old tortoise eat?

Mostly grass. The grass kept him going for well over a century.

Around 2009, his vet Joe Hollins noticed Jonathan was not in great shape. His beak, the hard edge he uses to bite, had worn down. Hollins started feeding him fruit and vegetables once a week.

The change worked. The extra calories grew back the beak. Hollins also found Jonathan lacked some minerals, vitamins and trace elements, Guinness says. Those were fixed too.

NPR's report from his 190th birthday described a party with fanfare and a salad cake.

The weekly treats are simple. Guinness and press reports mention apples, pears, bananas, lettuce, cabbage, carrots and cucumber, on top of the grass and hay. Because Jonathan cannot see or smell his food well, Hollins has fed him by hand. He wears thick gloves, because that beak is sharp.

News reports in 2022 added that he still takes an interest in Emma, and that staff could hear him grunting in the paddock. That is how tortoises flirt.

How well can he see and hear?

Not very well, but he still has one sharp sense.

Cataracts have dimmed his sight, Guinness says. His sense of smell is weaker too. His hearing is still excellent.

So if you ever visit, say hello. He will hear you.

What has Jonathan outlived?

A lot of people, mostly. When he hatched, around 1832, William IV was king of Britain. Since then Britain has had Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II, and now has Charles III. Jonathan has outlived all six who came after William.

He has also outlived every governor who ever welcomed him at Plantation House. Sources count them differently, but it is somewhere around 30 or more, because each one only stays a few years. The governors come and go. Jonathan stays on the lawn.

He has even outlived the old record holder. Tu'i Malila, a tortoise in Tonga, is widely reported to have died in 1965 at about 188. Jonathan passed that age and now holds the title.

And the island has changed around him. For most of his life, the only way to reach St Helena was by ship. The first scheduled passenger flights from Johannesburg began in 2017. A tortoise who arrived by ship in 1882 now lives on an island with an airport.

Photo: Kevstan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Why does one old tortoise matter so much?

Because he is a living link to a world that no longer exists. Almost nobody alive in 1886 is alive today, yet the animal in that photo is. PetaPixel put the old picture next to a modern one, and the two tortoises look almost the same. Same lawn, same slow chew.

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His story also shows how hard it is to prove an animal's age. There is no birth certificate for a tortoise. Guinness had to work from a shipping record and a description written in 1882. That is why the number comes with so many careful words around it.

For a few more years, at least, the garden at Plantation House will keep one very patient resident. Every extra birthday makes the record harder to beat.

Why do tortoises live so long?

Giant tortoises grow slowly, eat little and rest a lot. A slow body wears out slowly.

They also have very little to fear. On a quiet island with no predators, a big tortoise is hard to harm. Add a hard shell, a slow heartbeat and a gardener who brings snacks, and the odds improve.

Scientists are still studying why. We have followed the same question in our look at whether coffee slows aging, and in our guide to how to make your own luck. Jonathan has never read either.

A tortoise who has outlived every person who ever photographed him also does not need a plan.

Photo: Kevin Gepford / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Can you visit Jonathan?

Sometimes. Plantation House is the governor's home, so it is not a normal tourist stop. Even so, travel writers and visitors have photographed Jonathan on the lawn for years, and the photos in this story show it. If you plan a trip, ask the St Helena tourism office what is allowed before you go.

Getting there is the harder part. St Helena has a small airport now, with flights from Johannesburg and the occasional ship. It is a long way to go to watch a tortoise chew. Many people who have done it say it was worth the journey.

Is Jonathan really 195?

Not by the official count. Guinness lists 194 for 2026, and some outlets round up. In late 2022 the island also gave him an official birthday of 4 December, because nobody knows the real one.

The gap matters less than it seems. Every date in his story depends on one guess made in 1882, when a tortoise was called fully grown and sent on a ship.

Some experts also suggest Jonathan may belong to a different species or subspecies from other Seychelles giants, Guinness says. That is not settled.

Could he be even older?

Guinness thinks so. Its own entry says his age on arrival in 1882 was a conservative estimate, and that in all likelihood he is even older.

So 194 may be the youngest he could possibly be.

Nobody wrote down the day he hatched. And Jonathan is not telling.