londonAP —
Reports that a 193-year-old turtle named Jonathan, the world’s oldest living land animal, had died on April Fool’s Day were greatly exaggerated.
Jonathan continues to work, albeit slowly, on St. Helena Island.
“It was a hoax,” Anne Dillon, the island’s communications director, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “I can guarantee you that he is very much alive.”
News of the Seychelles giant tortoise’s death spread quickly on social media on Wednesday.
A description of X, falsely attributed to Joe Hollins, a veterinarian who studied the reptiles on an island in the South Atlantic between Africa and Brazil, says he is heartbroken to announce the death of a “gentle giant” who “survived empires, wars, and generations of humans.”
The post quickly racked up nearly 2 million views by Thursday, most of them expressing condolences.
But Hollins later said on Facebook that he didn’t even have an X account and that something more sinister was going on.
“There’s a hoax going around that isn’t even April Fool’s Day,” Hollins wrote. “Scammers are asking for cryptocurrency donations. It’s a scam.”
The Guinness Book of World Records lists Jonathan as the oldest living land animal and the oldest turtle in history. He is thought to have been about 50 years old when he was brought to St. Helena in 1882.
The government of St. Helena on Thursday sent photos of Jonathan walking around the grounds of the island’s governor’s mansion, best known as the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by British troops and exiled at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. It was there that the former French emperor died in 1821, about 10 years before Jonathan is thought to have taken the first steps in what would become his very long life.
