Oldest Gorilla in Captivity Marks 69th Birthday

Fatou, the world's oldest gorilla living in captivity, marked her 69th birthday with a relative feast on Monday, munching on cherry tomatoes, beets, leeks, and lettuce at the Berlin Zoo. The western lowland gorilla arrived in what was then West Berlin in 1959, per the AP. She was believed to be about 2 years old at the time, though her exact birth date isn't known—April 13 is her designated birthday. Gorillas typically live for around 35 to 40 years in the wild and longer in captivity.

Fatou was likely born in the wild in western Africa, but the story goes that a French sailor took her out of Africa and bartered her to cover his bar tab in Marseille, France, according to the Guinness World Records. A French animal trader then reportedly sold her to the zoo. These days, Fatou lives in an enclosure of her own and prefers to keep her distance from the zoo's other gorillas in her old age. She's lost her teeth and suffers from a touch of arthritis and hearing loss, but Christian Aust, the zoo's primate supervisor, says she's friendly with the zookeepers.