Shawn-Shawn — a 50-year-old primate who made history in 1975 when she was born at Zoo Atlanta as the first gibbon-siamang hybrid ever reported — died this week at Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary in Locust Grove.
Shawn-Shawn, nicknamed a “siabon” and a “gibbang” to describe her genetics as the daughter of a male Mueller gibbon and a female siamang, made the front page of The New York Times in July 1979.
