The oldest turtles in the world: a list of long-lived record holders

Mother Nature surprises us all the time. Most surprising of all are the facts of the longevity of creatures. Turtles are among the ten most ancient creatures living on land. They have inhabited the planet for 220 million years. There are also long-lived turtles among them, whose age has exceeded far over a hundred years.

Those who have a century – not old age

There are amazing animals on Earth, whose age is simply amazing. But not all long-livers records have been documented.

There is information that sheds light on how old the oldest tortoise is: Samira, who lived a little over three centuries. Although such a statement is debatable, since it has not been documented.

Here is a list of the longest living turtles in the world:

Of all those listed, only Jonathan, the giant Seychellois tortoise, is alive today.

Samira

This oldest tortoise in the world ended its life in Egypt (Cairo) at a very respectable age. According to some sources, at that moment she was 270 years old, according to others – all 315. In recent years, this old animal has already ceased to move independently.

In 1891, the reptile was presented to the zoo by King Farouk, the last monarch of Egypt.

Advaita

Lord Robert Clive, before his departure for India, was presented in 1767 by British soldiers returning from the Seychelles with this exotic animal.

The reptile first lived in the garden of the lord’s house. Then, after his death in 1875, she was taken to the Alipore Zoological Garden in the city of Calcutta. But there was no evidence that it was Advaita that the soldiers presented to the lord.

The animal died in 2006. It is assumed that she lived a little over a quarter of a millennium – 255 years. To prove this fact, it was decided to keep her shell. Zookeepers plan to determine the exact age of the reptile with the help of an examination.

Tui Malila

The age that this long-lived turtle has reached is a Guinness record. Although in this case, the exact age of the reptile could not be established.

According to undocumented information, in 1773 it was presented as a gift to the native leader by Captain Cook himself. Tui Malila ended up on the island of Tonga.

Assuming it was a one-year-old turtle, it would have been 1966 years old at the time of its death in 192. But there is information that the animal leader received a little later. Then the record holder lived to be 189 years old.

Lately, Malila has completely stopped moving and can no longer see anything. She ate only what was put directly to her mouth. The patterns on the shell darkened, it became almost one-color – almost black.

Jonathan

From the Seychelles, this giant tortoise was transported in company with three others in 1882 and presented to the Governor of Saint Helena. The animals were at that time about half a century old.

This conclusion was made because of the rather large size of their shells. The evidence is a photo taken around 1886-1900, in which Jonathan is photographed with two men. The picture clearly shows that the reptile is quite large, its shell resembles a small table in size. Because of this, they decided that the turtle was half a century old at the time of the move.

In 1930, the then-governor of the island, Spencer Davis, decided to name the already almost hundred-year-old male Jonathan. So the oldest of all living beings on the planet still lives in the official residence of the governor of the island.

In 2019, Jonathan will celebrate his 183rd birthday. He is still quite cheerful and active, although sometimes he shows senile intolerance. It happens that a long-liver, who considers himself the rightful owner of the territory of the Plantation House, will turn over all the benches in the yard, snort at the people involved in the work on the site and caring for the old-timer.

The image of Jonathan flaunts on the fivepenny coins of Saint Helena. He is a frequent hero of TV shows and magazine articles.

Harriet (Garietta)

Thirteen years ago (in 2006), at the age of 176, this centenarian died of a heart attack at the Australian Zoo. She was born presumably in 1830 on one of the islands of the Galapagos archipelago.

In the company of two more individuals of the same species, Harriet was brought to the UK by Darwin. The turtles were about five years old. This was determined by the size of their shells – they were no more than a plate. Mistakenly, the future centenarian was mistaken for a male and named Harry.

In 1841-1952. reptiles lived in Australia in the Brisbane City Botanical Garden. Then the then Harry was transported to a conservation area on the coast of the country. Where the other two turtles went is unknown.

But in 1960, the director of the Hawaiian zoo determined that Harry was a female. So the reptile got a different name. Someone called her Harriet, someone – Henrietta. But there were those who believed that the most suitable option was Harriet. Soon she was transported to the Australian Zoo, where she ended her life.

The document confirming the longevity of the reptile is a DNA test conducted in 1992, which confirmed that Harriet was 162 years old at that time.

On her 175th birthday, the centenarian was offered a mallow cake. The birthday girl had a shell the size of a dining table and weighed one and a half centners.

Timothy

A favorite of several generations of the Earls of Devon, he lived to be 160 years old. But until 1892 he served … on the ship “Queen”! During the Crimean War, Timothy was a kind of talisman.

He managed to visit East India and China before he was written off to the shore. In the ancestral count’s estate, they even tried to find a girlfriend for an exotic pet. But then his owners were in for a surprise: Timothy turned out to be a female.

Kiki

This giant lived for 146 years and ended up in the zoo of the Paris Garden of Plants. This happened in 2009. At the end of his life, Kiki weighed a quarter of a ton, was active, this was especially evident in his attitude towards females. And if the intestinal infection that brought down the womanizer, it is not known how many more years he would surprise people and delight cute tortoise beauties.