{"id":65715,"date":"2026-04-01T20:50:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/?p=65715"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:50:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:50:04","slug":"death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/","title":{"rendered":"Death hoax about Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest tortoise, fools BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A hoax falsely claiming that Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest living tortoise, had died spread on X, with BBC News and other outlets briefly reporting the claim as fact before it was debunked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fake post, written as if it came from veterinarian Joe Hollins, claimed Jonathan had died peacefully on St. Helena at the age of 193. It described the tortoise as a \u201cgentle giant\u201d and included personal details of caring for Jonathan that were meant to make the post appear authentic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is a hoax,\u201d the real Hollins said in a post from his account. \u201cThere is a hoax going around in X&#8230; using my name, saying Jonathan the Tortoise, the oldest living land animal, is dead. IT IS NOT TRUE.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fake account later posted an \u201cApril Fools\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JoeHollinsVet\/status\/2039499955795103939\">message<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BBC News was among the outlets that fell for the hoax, publishing an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c393xmpzjwko\">article<\/a> which said Jonathan had died attributing the claim to Hollins. The report repeated details from the fake post, including that Hollins had cared for Jonathan for years and had hand-fed him bananas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jonathan lives on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena and is widely recognized as the world\u2019s oldest known living land animal. He is believed to have hatched around 1832, meaning he has lived through nearly two centuries of history and become one of the island\u2019s best-known residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A hoax falsely claiming that Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest living tortoise, had died spread on X, with BBC News and other outlets briefly reporting the claim as fact before it was debunked. The fake post, written as if it came from veterinarian Joe Hollins, claimed Jonathan had died peacefully on St. Helena at the age [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":65716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1949,4370,4371],"class_list":["post-65715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-death-hoax","tag-jonathan-tortoise","tag-st-helena"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Death hoax about Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest tortoise, fools BBC - BNO News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Death hoax about Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest tortoise, fools BBC - BNO News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A hoax falsely claiming that Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest living tortoise, had died spread on X, with BBC News and other outlets briefly reporting the claim as fact before it was debunked. The fake post, written as if it came from veterinarian Joe Hollins, claimed Jonathan had died peacefully on St. Helena at the age [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BNO News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bnonews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-02T00:50:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/JonathanTortoise.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carlos Robles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bnonews\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bnonews\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carlos Robles\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carlos Robles\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/0a2ca734b9c5688c0e2d40fe6f33add1\"},\"headline\":\"Death hoax about Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest tortoise, fools BBC\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-02T00:50:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-02T00:50:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/\"},\"wordCount\":237,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/JonathanTortoise.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"death hoax\",\"Jonathan (Tortoise)\",\"St. Helena\"],\"articleSection\":[\"World\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/death-hoax-about-jonathan-the-worlds-oldest-tortoise-fools-bbc\/\",\"name\":\"Death hoax about Jonathan, the world\u2019s oldest tortoise, fools BBC - 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