Macaco Tião ("Tião the Monkey") (January 16, 1963 in
Rio de Janeiro – December 23, 1996 in Rio de Janeiro) was a
chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
of the
Rio de Janeiro Zoological Garden
Rio or Río is the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Maltese word for "river". When spoken on its own, the word often means Rio de Janeiro, a major city in Brazil.
Rio or Río may also refer to:
Geography Brazil
* Rio de Janeiro
* Rio do Sul, a ...
who was very popular with children and visitors.
His name ("Tião", a nickname for "Sebastião") is in memory of Rio de Janeiro's
patron saint,
Saint Sebastian (''São Sebastião''). He was tall and weighed .
History
Tião started to become popular in the 1980s for his temperament, regarded as constant "bad mood" and having the habit of throwing mud and feces on the visitors of the zoo, especially politicians such as
Marcello Alencar
Marcello Nunes de Alencar (August 23, 1925 – June 10, 2014) was a Brazilian politician and lawyer. Alencar served as the Governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro from 1995 until 1999, as well as two tenures as Mayor of Rio de Janeiro from 1983 t ...
.
Tião became a celebrity in
Brazil, when in 1988, the comedians who ran newspapers ''Casseta Popular'' and ''Planeta Diário'' (who would later join forces as
Casseta & Planeta is a Brazilian group of comedians who ran a TV show named , broadcast by Rede Globo between 1993 and 2010. ), jokingly created his extra official candidature for mayor as a protest in defence of
null voting. At the time, voting was written on papers instead of registered using
voting machines. It is estimated that more than 400,000 ballots were cast for him, and he reached third place in an election with 12 candidates. Because of that, he is now on the ''
Guinness World Records'' as the most voted chimpanzee in the world. As Tião was not a registered candidate, all his ballots were considered as null. In 1996, the
voting system in Brazil was changed to electronic machines, so votes could no longer be cast for non-registered candidates.
Macaco Tião had always attracted enormous attention and had a special place in the zoo, built especially for him.
Nationally famous, various Brazilian newspapers and the French ''
Le Monde'' reported the news of his death,
in December, 23 of 1996. Tião died of
diabetes at the age of 33. The city of Rio de Janeiro declared official mourning of three days, with the flags of Rio de Janeiro's Zoo being flown at half-staff.
His body was taken to the primate center of the state of Rio de Janeiro
Centro de Primatologia do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - CPRJ, in the
Guapimirim
Guapimirim (, from Tupi 'little spring', ''guapi'' 'spring', ''mirim'' 'little'), is a Brazilian Municipality in the state of Rio de Janeiro around 50km(31 miles) from its state capital, the city of Rio de Janeiro. Its in a region known as Bai ...
city, where his skeleton is preserved.
See also
*
List of individual apes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macaco Tiao
Animals in politics
1988 in Brazil
Individual chimpanzees