Titus Will Be Missed

I gotta admit, until earlier today, I had no idea there was a gorilla named Titus, though I had seen him several times. Titus was named by the famous zoologist and gorilla expert Dian Fossey when she first met him, and rose to fame at the tender age of five as part of Sir David Attenboroughs Life On Earth series, when he climbed all over the famous naturalist. Titus even went on to star in Gorillas In The Mist, along side Sigourney Weaver, the lucky, lucky primate! He even had a whole BBC documentary devoted to his life last year called Titus: The Gorilla King.

Titus became the first gorilla to have his life documented from birth, and over the course of his 35 years, he has provided researchers with unparalleled levels of information. Titus died last Monday, September 14th, after a short illness, reports BBC News.

BBC Worldwide has some videos on YouTube with Sir David and the crew that accompanied him on their first meeting with Titus and his brother. Below I embedded my favourite, the one showing a young Titus lying on Sir David, but they also have a beautiful one talking about how close the entire crew got to the huge primates.