Fatou the gorilla, believed to be one of the world’s oldest, is celebrating her 61st birthday at Berlin’s zoo — nearly six decades after she found her way to Germany from a French bar.
Zookeepers on Friday presented Fatou a rice cake decorated with the number 61 in fruit.
The zoo says she shares the title of world’s oldest female gorilla with Trudy, a gorilla at the zoo in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Still, it’s not entirely clear how old she is. Fatou arrived in Berlin in 1959, finding her way there after a sailor used the young gorilla as payment at a bar in the French port city of Marseille.
She isn’t the oldest inhabitant of the zoo, however. Ingo the flamingo, who arrived there in 1948, has that honor.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.