The nest building begins about a half hour before sunset, and involves bending branches and weaving them together to form a platform. These gorillas spend the majority of their time on the ground, but build a nest every night, usually in the trees. Western gorillas have more of a brownish tone to their fur, especially on the shoulders and head. Females, as in all the gorilla species, are about half the weight of males, and 60 to 75% the height. Adult males are just a few inches shy of six feet tall when standing upright, and can weigh about 475 pounds. The Western lowland gorilla is smaller than the Eastern gorilla, but is still gigantic. Only a handful of Eastern gorillas (about 20) exist in captivity, and there are no known captive mountain gorillas, so the Western is the gorilla you will see in zoos and exhibits. Because it lives in lower valleys and ranges closer to populations, it has been studied far more than the other species, and unfortunately, captured more often as well. The Western Lowland gorilla is the most populous and most recognizable of the gorillas. Gorillas are complex thinkers and tool builders, and most interestingly for their mass, and fierce appearance, are rather gentle and peaceful in their lifestyle, with little violence, free-forming family units, and long, rich childhoods spent learning from their elders. They can hold and manipulate things with their feet almost as easily as with their hands.
They have not only opposable thumbs, but, like all the great apes except for human beings, opposable big toes as well. The gorilla has huge, flat molars in the rear of the jaw that grind down difficult foods. Their rotund bellies, which expand well out past the girth of the chest, are like large cauldrons that break down starchy foodstuffs like a furnace. With the largest males well over 500 pounds, the gorilla must spend many hours a day foraging and consuming about 50 pounds of vegetation. Gorillas have never been observed hunting, or eating any small game in the wild, but DNA testing of their feces suggests they may eat occasional small creatures - perhaps even monkeys. Only occasionally will gorillas eat insects, like ants and termites. They are probably exclusively herbivores who eat fruit, leaves, shoots, bulbs, roots and tree bark of nearly 100 different plant species. The gorilla is tremendously powerful and uses its strength to rip open tree trunks to retain the softer insides. Gorillas are true knuckle-walkers, and spend the most time of all the great apes walking on all fours. Many large males sleep on the ground and never enter the trees after they reach a certain size. The gorilla is a terrestrial animal which only spends time in trees during its youth, and while sleeping in a nest at night.
New protected areas are being designated for some gorilla populations, and the population of mountain gorillas has continued to increase in recent years, leading to its downlisting from Critically Endangered to Endangered in November 2018.All gorilla subspecies are critically endangered, and even with increasing conservation efforts, the likelihood of maintaining a population in the wild for some of these creatures is very slim. Both gorilla species have been decreasing in numbers for decades, and a 2010 United Nations report suggests that they may disappear from large parts of the Congo Basin by the mid-2020s.Ĭonservation efforts by WWF, other organizations, and governments are making a difference for gorillas. This low rate of reproduction makes it difficult for gorillas to recover from population declines. Once a female begins to breed, she'll likely give birth to only one baby every four to six years and only three or four over her entire lifetime. Females become sexually mature around seven or eight years old but don’t begin to breed until a couple of years later. The bond between the silverback and his females forms the basis of gorilla social life. Gorillas live in family groups of usually five to 10, but sometimes two to more than 50, led by a dominant adult male-or silverback-who holds his position for years. Each has a lowland and upland subspecies. The two gorilla species live in equatorial Africa, separated by about 560 miles of Congo Basin forest. The largest of the great apes, gorillas are stocky animals with broad chests and shoulders, large, human-like hands, and small eyes set into hairless faces.
Biggest silverback gorilla code#
In fact, gorillas share 98.3% of their genetic code with humans, making them our closest cousins after chimpanzees and bonobos. Gorillas are gentle giants and display many human-like behaviors and emotions, such as laughter and sadness.
0 kommentar(er)
