Oldest Known Ape, Gamma, Dies At 59

ATLANTA - The world's oldest known ape is dead.

Gamma, a chimpanzee, was found lying in her cage at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Emory University yesterday. She was 59 years old, and beloved by the researchers who studied her.

"People are pretty upset," said Cathy Yarbrough, spokeswoman for Yerkes. "She was a favorite animal of almost everybody who works with the chimpanzees."

Yarbrough, who had identified Gamma as the oldest ape known, said workers at the center at first believed she was sleeping but soon found they couldn't wake her.

The daughter of Nana and Bill, two chimps caught in the wild in French Guinea, Gamma was born in captivity in 1932. She was one of the first apes born at Robert M. Yerkes' primate center, then in Orange Park, Fla.

After Yerkes became affiliated with Emory, Gamma moved to the Atlanta center in 1965. Yerkes has 2,600 primates, including 204 chimpanzees.

Gamma was studied exhaustively by Yerkes and his associates to gather information about raising captive-born chimps.

"Gamma holds a place in our hearts because she provided us with much new knowledge of the . . . nature of those species close to humans in the animal kingdom," Frederick King, director of Yerkes, said last year.

"She has significantly enriched our understanding. For this we are most grateful."

The Guinness Book of Records identifies the oldest ape on record as Guas, an orangutan who was believed to be about 59 when he died at the Philadelphia zoo in 1977. Since he was not born in captivity, his precise birthdate was not known.

Guinness identified the oldest chimp as Jimmy, who died at the Seneca Zoo in Rochester, N.Y., in 1985 at age 53.