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One of the oldest Asian elephants on record has died. <\/p>\n
Mary, a 63-year-old elephant, died this week at the Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens<\/a> in Orlando, zoo officials said.<\/p>\n Shonna Green, spokeswoman for the zoo, said Mary died late Tuesday of an age-related illness. <\/p>\n \u201cShe was 63 — which is rather old for an elephant — but no one dies of old age, so there has to be some kind of complication,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n A necropsy will be conducted to determine the exact cause of death.<\/p>\n Mary was born in 1946 at the Nehru Zoological Park<\/a> in India. She came to the U.S. in 1952 as part of a circus. After she was retired from the circus, she was sent to the Dallas\u00a0Zoo before coming to the Central Florida Zoo in 1983, where she was the matriarch of the group of elephants, despite being smaller than the others.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Mary was the third-oldest Asian elephant on record at a U.S. zoo accredited by the Assn. of Zoos & Aquariums<\/a>.<\/p>\n Green said Mary touched many people over the years, and zoo guests had enjoyed the annual birthday celebrations and seeing Mary during weekend\u00a0demonstrations on elephants\u00a0that she headlined with another elephant, Maude. <\/p>\n