Auntie Rose was getting on a bit even back in 1983 when Ugandan researcher Gilbert Isabirye-Basuta first identified her.

Given this, we estimate her to be around 60 years old, which would make her the oldest wild chimp ever known.

The oldest chimp anywhere, though, would be Cheeta, the one that starred in the old Tarzan movies. She is  still living in captivity in California at age 73.

Telling how old a chimpanzee is in the wild is not that easy. So to get a more accurate estimate genetic analyses are being done right now by Linda Vigilant of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

Auntie Rose should have at least one adult son in the Kanyawara community who's been born long before researchers arrived here. However, it's not really possible to say who that might be by just observing the chimpanzees' behavior.

The genetic analyses will help to literally tell 'who is who' among the chimps at Kanyawara.

Auntie Rose's long life is quite remarkable, given the fact that she has survived for so long the dangers of the wild - flu outbreaks,  poaching snare wounds, parasite infections and violent intercommunity encounters - events that have claimed the lives of many younger chimpanzees.

Despite that she is now slow and missing much of her hair, Auntie Rose gave birth for the last time relatively recently. Mandela, a healthy young male was born in 1998.

Auntie Rose grooming her youngest son, Mandela © Jean-Michel Krief

Auntie Rose is quite high-ranking for a female but with age she is becoming more hesitant to join in the flurry of activity in the center of large parties.

We frequently stumble upon her feeding quietly at a short distance from the main party or see her slink in to feed after the noisy males have left.

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