A gorilla at the Berlin zoo is set to celebrate her 67th birthday on Saturday. Believed to be the oldest gorilla in the world, Fatou has been in the city longer than the Berlin Wall was.
When Fatou first moved to in 1959, the was still two years away from being built. When it fell in 1989, she was still there. And on Saturday, the gorilla will celebrate her 67th birthday.
According to the , where she lives, Fatou is the oldest gorilla in the world, although her precise age and birthday aren’t known.
The zoo says she first arrived in Europe when a sailor tried to use her as currency in a pub in the French port city of , before eventually ending up in what was then West Berlin.
She was estimated to be about two years old and .
Fatou received her first birthday present on Friday: a food basket including twigs, leaves, lettuce, grapes, bananas and a bit of melon. Just like older humans, she avoids too many sweet treats and increasingly sticks to soft food which she can chew without teeth.
Fatou: the oldest gorilla in the world
In the wild, gorillas can live up to the age 35, and in confinement, with human care, up to 50. But Fatou is showing no signs of stopping.
She lives in her own gorilla pen separate from the main group. This, according to the zoo, would be too stressful for a lady of her advanced years.
Fatou is free to make contact with her fellow great apes whenever she wants, but prefers to enjoy her retirement in peace.
German vet Andre Schüle told the Associated Press that there is no gorilla older than Fatou in any other zoo “and we have to assume that there is no animal older than her in the wild,” where animals do not live so long.
In 2021, Katjuscha, the oldest female polar bear in captivity in Europe, at the zoo.
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