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Oldest Known Gorilla, Jenny, Dies At Dallas Zoo

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Sep 5, 2008 12:22 pm US/Central

Oldest Known Gorilla, Jenny, Dies At Dallas Zoo

DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ― Jenny, a western lowland gorilla at the Dallas Zoo, has died.

The Zoo says Jenny died Thursday from an inoperable tumor in her stomach, which had started to interfere with her eating and drinking.

Jenny arrived at the Dallas Zoo in 1957.  At 55 years old, she was the oldest gorilla in captivity.

Jenny reached her 55th birthday in May.  At that time the International Species Information System, which maintains records on animals at 700 institutions around the world, said Jenny was the oldest gorilla in its database.

Western lowland gorillas in the wild are generally thought to live to age 35 or 40.

Zookeepers say Jenny had been in fairly good health for her age.  She had recently been part of a national study on menopause in gorillas.  

Gorillas are classified as a critically endangered species.  But scientists recently came across a previously unknown population of several thousand gorillas living in a remote swamp in the Republic of Congo.  The new findings doubled the estimate of the total population of western lowland gorillas, to 200,000.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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