The St. Helena 5 pence coin shows Jonathan, a roughly 190 year old tortoise
schleck8
109 points
32 comments
October 24, 2026
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Discussion Highlights (7 comments)
Razengan
We should elect him as president
berlam
> In July 2023 there was a fight between David and Fredrik which resulted in Fredrik being turned onto his back and left to die, in an area where his plight would not have been visible from the house or the tortoise viewing area. Fortunately he was spotted in time by visiting vet Joe Hollins, who turned Fredrik the right way up with no long-lasting ill effects. This is apparently not the first time recently when a tortoise has been turned over, though in the other occasion it was David who finished the wrong way up, not after a fight but after an unsuccessful attempt to mount Emma for mating purposes… His companions. Never thought tortoises have such a wild life. https://sainthelenaisland.info/jonathan.htm
mberning
It is my dream to someday travel to St. Helena and Tristan da Cunha.
brcmthrowaway
Is this where Napoleon was exiled??
dang
Related. Others? 'Jonathan' is the oldest land animal on Earth - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49998066 - Oct 2026 (164 comments) Jonathan the 190-Year-Old Tortoise Was Photographed in 1886 and Today - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30099606 - Jan 2022 (77 comments)
nephihaha
My father met Jonathan many decades ago. Jonathan has outlived him by quite some margin.
wand3r
Tangentially related gripe: Cloudflare has ruined the internet. I can't even read an article about a turtle using a US VPN with US IPs without solving 2 captchas. I assume some uptick is the amount of scraping labs are doing as well as a plethora of tools and bots made with AI, but it is extremely annoying how consolidated players dictate what is possible on the internet and there is no escape from surveillance capitalism. These little bits of friction add up. Edit: I was using the VPN. The turtle was not using the VPN