“The traditional birthday cake could not be missing this year either. The birthday dinner is always something very special for Fatou,” the zoo said. The photos included in the post showed the huge capital enjoying a cake decorated with berries and fruits to form the numbers “65”. Fatou arrived in Berlin in 1959 through what the zoo describes as “unusual conditions” in a news bulletin from her 61st birthday. A sailor used the young gorilla to pay for his card at a tavern in Marseille, France, after which he was transported across Europe before finally being bought by a German zoo. It was estimated that she was only two years old at the time of her arrival. In 2019, Fatou was named the “oldest living gorilla in captivity” by the Guinness Book of World Records after the death of Trudy, a gorilla born in 1956. Fatou is one of the only animals in the Berlin Zoo born in nature, according to the press release. In captivity, gorillas usually live up to 50 years, Guinness said.
