The oldest known living terrestrial animal is Jonathan (above), a Seychelles giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea hololissa), originally from the Seychelles, but now a long-time resident of the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. He is believed to have been born (or hatched) c. 1832, thus making him 190 years old this year. In January 2016, the BBC reported that Jonathan was given a new diet intended to keep him healthy and extend his life.
Colo died January 2017 at age 60 in the zoo where she was so famously born. (Columbus Zoo and Aquarium)
On December 22, 1956, a baby gorilla named Colo entered the world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, becoming the first-ever gorilla born in captivity. She Weighed in at approximately 4 pounds, Colo, a western lowland gorilla whose name was a combination of Columbus and Ohio, was the daughter of Millie and Mac, two gorillas captured in French Cameroon, Africa, who were brought to the Columbus Zoo in 1951. Before Colo’s birth, gorillas found at zoos were caught in the wild, often by brutal means. In order to capture a gorilla when it was young and therefore still small enough to handle, hunters frequently had to kill the gorilla’s parents and other family members.
Colo, who generated enormous public interest, went on to become a mother, grandmother, and in 1996, a great-grandmother to Timu, the first surviving infant gorilla conceived by artificial insemination. Timu gave birth to her first baby in 2003.