A recent discovery put a not-so-far-fetched clue on the table: Jonathan, the world’s longest-living tortoise, would be gay.
The animal whose long life has made it a celebrity lives on Santa Elena, an island in the South Atlantic, between Brazil and Angola.
According to Guinness records, Jonathan the tortoise, in addition to being gay, is the world’s oldest living land animal.
The history of the sanctuary tells us that the reptile arrived on the island in 1882, when it was about 50 years old, and was a gift to Sir William Grey-Wilson.
Photo: Guinness World Records – Jonathan has lived on the island for 150 years
It has remained at the site since then and has seen 31 governors pass through. Actually, it will be 2023, 191 years old.
In his investigation, Milenio describes that Jonathan shares a home with three giant tortoises: Emma, David, and Fred.
“It has defied nature, because it has escaped the normal life expectancy of a giant tortoise, which is usually 150 years. Nowadays, it is common to see it with its legs and neck stretched out in the sun, sometimes, petrified. visitors who are beginning to believe it is dead”, describes the Mexican portal.
That’s how Joanna and Fred, then Frederica, met in 1991. Since then, they have supported each other and even had sexual intercourse for three decades.
Photo: Guinness World Records – Now there’s a possible answer to why it didn’t have baby turtles
however, he never made any purchases, something that was suspicious to investigators.
It was in 2017 when a scar on Frederica’s shell revealed that she was probably a male, not a female, so they now call her Fred.
And it is that island herpetologist Katherine Mann said that males usually have a concave slit called a plastron, which allows them to mate with females.
However, Frederica has a deformity that prevents her from seeing her plaster size and therefore determining her gender.
While this is unknown at the moment, it could answer why Jonathan didn’t have children with Frederica, because in fact it would be Fred.
