Cheeta, chimpanzee and Tarzan movie star, dies at 'roughly 80'

From ew, Cheeta the chimpanzee, who starred in Tarzan movies alongside Olympic swimmer-turned-actor Johnny Weissmuller in the 1930s and ranked #1 on EW.com’s list of the 10 Best Monkeys at the Movies, died of kidney failure Saturday. According to the Suncoast Primary Sanctuary’s outrach director, Cheeta was “roughly 80 years old, loved fingerpainting and football and was soothed by nondenominational Christian music.”

Roughly 80?! Way to live, chimp! That’s amazing! (Cheeta was an anomaly; the average zoo chimp dies around age 35-45.) I sure hope my favorite chimp lives that long.

The similarities between Cheeta the chimp and your average human don’t stop there: Cheeta loved to see people laugh, abandoned art projects as soon as he got bored with them, enjoyed standing up nice and tall, and “when he didn’t like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them.”