The oldest western lowland gorilla in the world is one year older today. To celebrate, Fatou received an edible bouquet and a basket full of fruit and vegetables from her caretakers at the Berlin Zoo.
The presents, not coincidentally with lots of berries – her favorite food – were all easy to chew because the gorilla female has no teeth. Not unusual for a very old clapper like Fatou: “In nature, gorillas live to be about 45 to 50 years old,” says her regular caretaker Ruben Gralki to German media. “In zoos, they can age considerably. But 66 years is really very special.”
Ruben has been taking care of Fatou for 25 years. The secret behind her old age? “Especially vegetables. She used to eat it raw, but since about ten years we have to cook it first,” continues the caretaker.
Bar in Marseilles
Fatou has been at the zoo since 1959. She was estimated to be two years old at the time. A French sailor is said to have brought her from Africa and handed her over to a bar in the port of Marseille to pay his outstanding bill.
The landlady contacted the Zoo Berlin, which was already known for keeping monkeys. The zoo was willing to take in the gorilla female, after which the Frenchwoman flew to Berlin with her in the airplane cabin.
In 1974 Fatou got her first and only offspring Dufte, a female who died in 2001. Since 2009, the gorilla mother has been separated from the rest of the group due to her age.
It Guinness World Book of Records in 2019, named Fatou the oldest living captive gorilla in the world. Before that, Trudy, a gorilla from 1956, held the title, but on July 24, 2019, she breathed her last at the zoo in Little Rock, Arkansas in the US at the age of 63.
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