Penny Patterson (2024)

FAQs

What was Koko the gorilla's IQ? ›

Intelligence. Between 1972 and 1977, Koko was administered several infant IQ tests, including the Cattell Infant Intelligence Scale and form B of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. She achieved scores in the 70–90 range, which is comparable to a human infant that is slow but not intellectually impaired.

After 44 years, Project Koko is the world's longest ape-language study and, according to Penny, the most successful, with Koko mastering hundreds of signs. After a lifetime together, Penny and Koko share a bond similar to that of a mother and daughter.

Koko did get pregnant but had a miscarriage. The two remained close companions after that, according to Patterson. "I think that's one of Koko's deepest regrets is not having a baby," she told ABC News.

Koko was 13 years old when she learned her beloved kitten, All Ball, died after being hit by a car. Visibly upset, the western lowland gorilla kept signing the words “sad, frown, cry, bad” and cried out with a hooting sound she made as a baby while left alone in her cage at night.

' Koko signed, 'Dead, draped. ' 'Draped' means 'covered up. ' Then the caregiver asked, 'Where do animals go when they die? ' Koko said, 'A comfortable hole.

Chimpanzees are known to be the animal with the highest IQ.

Skeptical scientists questioned how much of Koko's communication actually came from her, and how much came from our own preconceptions and projections. Researchers have argued in the past that apes don't possess the same complex language-processing abilities that humans do.

Meet Ndume

Ndume joined the Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org in 1991, after spending his first 10 years at the Cincinnati Zoo, and . Born in 1981 and already a father of three by the age of 10, the 400-pound Ndume was Koko's intended mate.

Francine “Penny” Patterson, who remained her trainer throughout her life. Over the years, Koko was able to understand and use more than 1,000 different signs — and famously asked for a cat for Christmas in 1983.

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.

Was Koko sad when Robin died? ›

Koko the gorilla, the super-intelligent ape who understands spoken English and communicates with humans via sign language, apparently reacted to the death of his friend Robin Williams like the rest of us did -- with deep sadness.

On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor gorilla enclosure where he was violently grabbed and dragged by Harambe. Fearing for the boy's life, a zoo worker shot and killed Harambe.