Normal human ventricles eject 60-70 percent of the blood in a given contraction. In orangutans, the efficiency is down to 55-65 percent. Mopie's is as low as 35 percent. He's the second gorilla that I've seen with this condition. His father died at 37 of a heart problem, but then his father was born in the wild.
Apes do live artificially long in captivity.
The beauty of the Doppler machine, National Zoo primates curator Lisa Stevens tells me, is that you can literally watch and videotape the heart at work. When the ultrasonic scope is inserted, you can see everything in motion, even the aortic valve opening and closing. I thought I'd do this for a few years, but then I realized that this was it. I started with cats, then bears, seals and sea lions. You become specialized eventually, but most people are very versatile.