tagged w/ Gorillas in the Mist
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The "Gorilla King" Titus has passed away from old age.
September 2009. On the morning of Sept. 14, trackers at the Karisoke Research Centre found the legendary silverback gorilla Titus, dead on his night nest in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. He was 35, which is quite old for a male mountain gorilla. Titus had been the dominant male in one of the gorilla groups studied for many years by Karisoke and was the subject of the documentary "Gorilla King" TV series.
Born in 1974
Titus' eventful life began in 1974, observed by Dian Fossey and her research assistant Kelly Stewart, daughter of actor Jimmy Stewart. Kelly was the first to see the newborn, so she named him Titus after a character in a novel she was reading. His mother, the elderly Flossie, lived in Fossey's Group Four, led by his father, Uncle Bert. Fossey noted in Gorillas in the Mist that Titus seemed to be "underdeveloped and spindly" and had difficulty breathing. He soon overcame these disabilities, the first of many challenges he faced in childhood.
Father killed by poachers
When Titus was 4 years old, poachers killed his father Uncle Bert, his uncle Digit, and his younger brother. Soon after, a newly arrived silverback named Beetsme killed Titus' infant sister, causing his mother and older sister to flee to another group. Titus was left at age 5 to live with a few unrelated males, including Beetsme and Tiger, that were soon joined by Peanuts and two others. The group remained all-male for several years, until another group's silverback died and five females came to join the bachelors. Beetsme eventually drove off all the other males except for Titus, who was favoured by Papoose, the dominant female.
Even tempered
An unusually even tempered and skillful leader, Titus maintained his dominance over a group of some 25 individuals without difficulty for many years.
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* Follow the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International on Twitter.com and get the latest updates http://twitter.com/savinggorillasThe "Gorilla King" Titus has passed away from old age.
September 2009. On... more
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