Floquet de New
Floquet de Neu (Catalan) or Copito de Nieve (Spanish) - German: The Snow Maiden (* ca. 1963 / 1964 in Equatorial Guinea ; † 24. November 2003 in Barcelona ) was a Western Lowland Gorilla , the only known gorilla with albinism and mascot of the Barcelona Zoo .
Life
On October 1st, 1966, some landowners killed a group of gorillas that were getting their food from the plantations. While inspecting the bodies, they found a very young, white gorilla clinging to his dead mother. One of the hunters took the gorilla home and four days later sold it to behavioral scientist Jordi Sabater Pi for 15,000 pesetas .
Floquet arrived at Barcelona Zoo on November 1, 1966, where he spent the remaining 37 years of his life. He fathered a total of 22 children with three different females, six of whom reached adulthood. Neither of them was an albino.
In 2001 he was diagnosed with skin cancer, which is most likely due to his albinism. The disease worsened, and in September 2003 doctors announced that he probably only had a few months to live. To spare Floquet further suffering, he was put to sleep on November 24, 2003.
On November 19, 2003, the Catalan astronomer Pepe Manteca named an asteroid he discovered in honor of Floquet 95962 Copito .
media
- Sabater Pi dedicated his book Floquet per semper (German: snowflake forever ) to him.
- In the novel Memòries d'en Floquet de Neu (German: Memories of Snow Maiden ) by the Catalan writer Toni Sala, Floquet is one of the main characters.
- An episode of PBS Nature entitled Snowflake: The White Gorilla (2005) is dedicated to him.
- Floquet appears on the cover of the British group Basement Jaxx's album Rooty .
- In 2011, the children's film 'Floquet de Neu' (Eng .: 'Flöckchen') was produced in Spain, in which the gorilla appears as the main character.
