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In April 2008 the male chimpanzee Cheeta, well known
for his appearances in the Tarzan films of the 1930s
and 1940s, was reported to have celebrated his 76th
birthday in a primate sanctuary, Creative Habitats
and Enrichment for Endangered and Threatened Apes (CHEETA),
in Palm Springs, California. Cheeta is famous for
being – allegedly – the oldest great ape in the
world. His longevity is even given 'official'
recognition in the Guinness Book of Records.
However, Cheeta's curriculum vitae raises questions which cast
considerable doubt on the whole story. Between 1932
and 1949 Cheeta appeared in 12 Tarzan films
alongside Johnny Weissmuller and Lex Barker.
Astonishingly, all the photos of the Tarzan actors
over more than a decade show that the chimpanzee was
virtually the same size in all the films. Two
clearly distinct photos from 1939 and 1949 show 'Cheeta'
– first in the 1939 Tarzan Finds a Son with
Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, and then
in Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), with the
alleged Cheeta in his last Tarzan role standing
alongside Lex Barker and Brenda Joyce. The
chimpanzee in the 1949 photo is actually even
smaller than the one photographed ten years earlier.
Were several 'Cheetas' employed for the same film
role? There are also some indications that the 'Cheeta'
who appeared in other films between 1951 and 1955
remains something of a mystery. Then, in 1967, a
so-called 'Cheeta' made a final appearance alongside
Rex Harrison in the film Doctor Doolittle,
still wearing baby clothes at – supposedly – around
30 years old.
Some chimpanzees, especially in the U.S.A., are reported to have reached
the age of 60. However, if there are uncertainties
of one kind or another over the duration of any
animal's life in captivity, I have chosen not to
list it in my publication Longevity of Mammals in
Captivity (Weigl, 2005). This book includes a
female chimpanzee, Fifi, who was living at Taronga
Zoo, Sydney, Australia, in August 2004. Fifi, who
was wild-born in 1947, arrived at St Louis Zoo,
Missouri, on 1 July 1948 via the New York animal
importers and dealers Henry Trefflich, and moved
from there to Sydney on 19 November 1954. She died
at Taronga on 19 July 2007, and was the first
chimpanzee known definitely to have reached the age
of 60.
Currently the proven record longevity for a living ape is held by a male
chimpanzee, Kongo. He was born on 28 February 1948
in one of Bob and Mae Noell's show trucks, and later
appeared as a boxing chimpanzee in their 'gorilla
touring show'. The former Noell's Chimp Farm (Palm
Harbor, Florida) became the Suncoast Primate
Sanctuary, where Kongo was still living as of 30
September 2008 at the age of 60 years and 7 months
(Jan Stiffler, e-mail comm.). This is so far the
greatest known age reached by a chimpanzee. Kongo is
also the first great ape – or non-human primate of
any species – to have lived for more than 60 years
in captivity. The previous record was held by a
female chimpanzee, Gamma, who was born on 21
September 1932 at the Yerkes Center (Orange Park,
West Orange, Florida), moved in 1965 to Yerkes
Regional Primate Research Center, Atlanta, Georgia,
and died there on 19 February 1992 after living in
captivity for 59 years and 5 months (Jones, 1995).
The claim that Cheeta is 76 years old is incompletely documented and his
past life remains in obscurity. His great age can
now finally be relegated to the realm of legends.
References
Jones, M.L. (1995): Mammalian Longevity Records, an
Update, December 1995. (Unpublished typescript.)
Weigl, R. (2005): Longevity of Mammals in
Captivity; From the Living Collections of the World,
E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung,
Stuttgart.
[See further IZN 53 (8), p. 484, where primatologist
Jane Goodall, after a visit to Palm Springs in 2006,
is quoted as commenting that Cheeta looked about 45.
Further details of the story, suggesting that there
were indeed several ‘Cheetas', were recently
unravelled by R.D. Rosen in ‘Lie of the jungle',
Washington Post 7 December 2008, pp. 14 ff. (see
www.washingtonpost.com) – Ed.]
Richard Weigl, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
(WEIGL.2003@t-online.de).
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