Chattanooga Zoo chimpanzee gets echocardiogram

It’s not just humans who can have issues with their heart.

It affects primates like chimpanzees, too.

This was check-up day for Artimus and Brandy at the Chattanooga zoo.

They are two of the zoo’s 7 chimps, who get tested annually.

Dr. William Warren, a Chattanooga Heart Institute physician performed an echocardiogram on the two chimps this afternoon.

It was the first time Dr. Warren used 3-D and strain imaging to do that testing.

Warren says that, “the zoo mascot Hank, famous in Chattanooga, TN a chimpanzee died of cardiovascular causes and so that prompted the zoo to want to look at the other chimpanzees and to screen them for heart disease.”

Heart disease is not only a major cause of death in humans, it’s also the number killer of primates like chimps and gorillas.

The medical team said they didn’t anticipate any serious problems with the animals tested today.