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Michael (March 17, 1973,
Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...
– April 19, 2000) was a male
gorilla Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five su ...
involved in experiments to teach apes sign language. He is alleged to have had a working
vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...
of over 600 signs in
American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...
, taught to him by Koko, a female gorilla;
Francine Patterson Francine "Penny" Patterson (born February 13, 1947) is an American animal psychologist. From 1972 onwards, she taught a modified form of American Sign Language, which she called "Gorilla Sign Language" (GSL), to a gorilla named Koko. The scien ...
; and other staff of
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
. Michael, an orphan, spent most of his life in
Woodside, California Woodside is a incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It has a council–manager system of government. The population of the town was 5,309 at the 2020 census. The town's population ha ...
, where he became known for painting. Both Michael and Koko’s linguistic abilities are widely rejected by specialists, despite popular perception to the contrary.


Biography

Michael's parents were killed while he was still a baby. At the age of three, he was brought to live with Koko at Stanford.


Death

Michael died of heart failure related to cardiomyopathy on April 19, 2000. Koko and her more recent potential mate, Ndume, mourned his death for several months. Koko died in 2018, and staff have since returned Ndume to the Cincinnati Zoo, where he lives with two female gorilla companions.


See also

* Chantek *
Dian Fossey Dian Fossey ( ; January 16, 1932 – ) was an American primatologist and conservationist known for undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorilla groups from 1966 until her murder in 1985. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of ...
*
George Schaller George Beals Schaller (born 26 May 1933) is an American mammalogist, biologist, conservationist and author. Schaller is recognized by many as the world's preeminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America. ...
*
Great ape language Great ape language research historically involved attempts to teach chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans to communicate using imitative human speech, sign language, physical tokens and computerized lexigrams. These studies were con ...
*
Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall; 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English zoologist, Primatology, primatologist and Anthropology, anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremo ...
*
Kanzi Kanzi (October 28, 1980 – March 18, 2025), also known by the lexigram (from the character 太), was a male bonobo who was the subject of several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who h ...
*
List of individual apes This is a list of non-human apes of encyclopedic interest. It includes individual chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and gibbons that are in some way famous or notable. Actors * J. Fred Muggs (a chimpanzee born 1952) was a "co-host" ...
*
Mountain gorilla The mountain gorilla (''Gorilla beringei beringei'') is one of the two subspecies of the eastern gorilla. It is listed as endangered by the IUCN . There are two populations: One is found in the Virunga Mountains, Virunga volcanic mountains of C ...
*
Primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...
* Primate use of American Sign Language * ''
The Mind of an Ape ''The Mind of an Ape'' is a 1983 book by David Premack and Ann James Premack. The authors argue that it is possible to teach language to (non-human) great apes. They write: "We now know that someone who comprehends speech must know language, even ...
''


References

{{Great ape language 1973 animal births 2000 animal deaths Individual apes involved in language studies Individual gorillas Individual primates in the United States Visual arts by animals Deaths from cardiomyopathy