Wellington Zoo’s well-loved Marty the chimpanzee died suddenly on Thursday, aged 34.
In a Facebook post on Friday, Wellington Zoo said Marty was looking well earlier on Thursday.
“But late in the morning he was seen to suddenly collapse and become unresponsive,” the zoo said.
“Our team was able to confirm he’d passed away shortly after.”
Wellington Zoo said there was “no obvious sign of injury or trauma”.
“We will be doing a necropsy to see if we can confirm the cause of death.”
Marty was born at Wellington Zoo nearly 35 years ago.
“He took over as Alpha of the Chimpanzee group in about 2005 until Alexis took over from him in about 2017. He has a daughter Keza and the second-youngest Chimp in the group Kitwe is his grandson.
“The Wellington Zoo whānau are all deeply saddened by this loss.”
Marty was remembered by many zoo-goers as being a cheeky youngster.
The average life expectancy for chimpanzees is about 33 years in the wild. Under human care, that increases to about 50 to 60 years.
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