Mama
The chimpanzee we’re talking about was called Mama. She was one of the oldest living chimpanzees on the European continent. Her age, 59, is considered as extremely old in chimpanzee-terms. Mama was born in the wild in 1957, after which she spent her youth in a zoo in Leipzig.
In 1971, Mama was transferred to a zoo in Arnhem in the Netherlands, along with chimpanzees Gorilla and Franje. There they formed a new chimpanzee colony that would become world-famous. They were the first example of several adult chimpanzees living in the same enclosure. This was a groundbreaking development.
Mama got really close to one of her caretakers: Jan van Hooff.