Zoo park loses a chimp

HYDERABAD: A 21-year-old female chimpanzee named Mamatha died at the Nehru Zoological Park here on Friday.AP Zoos Director M Mallikarjuna Rao said she had died of congestive heart failure associated with kidney failure after suffering for almost two months.The chimpanzee was brought from Taronga zoo in Australia when she was one-and-a-half-years old, and was originally called Sumu.However, the staff at the Hyderabad zoo rechristened it as Mamatha.With her death, only two chimpanzees are left at the Nehru Zoological Park.While one is a 36-year-old male, the other is a 16-year-old female.Rao said scientists had sent Mamatha's blood and DNA samples to the Veterinary College and the Laboratory for the conservation of endangered species (LaCONES) to pinpoint the exact cause of her death.The post-mortem was conducted by zoo veterinarians.