Gorillas life style
Gorilla, strong animal
Gorillas are herbivorous and great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of Africa. The genus Gorilla is divided into three species
Species
The eastern gorillas
The western gorillas
The mountain gorillas
and either has four or five subspecies. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 95 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after chimpanzees and bonobos. The western gorilla lives in west central Africa, while the eastern gorilla lives in east central Africa.
Appearance
There are thought to be around 316,000 western gorillas in the wild, and 5,000 eastern gorillas. The eastern gorilla is more darkly colour than the western gorilla, with the mountain gorilla being the darkest of all. The mountain gorilla also has the thickest hair. The eastern gorilla also has a longer face and broader chest than the western gorilla. Like humans , gorillas have individual fingerprints.
Weight
Wild male gorillas weigh 136 to 227 kg , while adult females weigh 68–113 kg .Adult males are 1.4 to 1.8 m tall, with an arm span that stretches from 2.3 to 2.6 m . Female gorillas are shorter at 1.25 to 1.5 m height and smaller arm spans. The gorilla is powerful, with an extremely thick, strong chest and a protruding abdomen. Both skin and hair are black. The face has large nostrils, small ears, and prominent brow ridges. Females and young climb more than males, mainly because much vegetation cannot support the weight of males.
Strength
Gorillas are stronger than you and me combined. The silverbacks are in fact stronger than 20 adult humans combined as they can lift or throw up to 815 kgs while a well-trained man can only lift up to 400 kgs. Any adult gorilla can lift up to 450 kilograms, not with a body size that can go as high as 200kgs.
Lifespan
A gorilla's lifespan is normally between 35 and 40 years, although zoo gorillas may live for 50 years or more. Gorillas move around in family groups that can range from a couple of individuals to more than 40 members. A dominant male leads and holds the position for years.
Food or diet
A gorilla's day is divided between rest periods and travel or feeding periods. Diets differ between and within species. Mountain gorillas mostly eat foliage, such as leaves, stems, pith, and shoots, while fruit makes up a very small part of their diets. Mountain gorilla food is widely distributed and neither individuals nor groups have to compete with one another. Despite eating a few species in each habitat, mountain gorillas have flexible diets and can live in a variety of habitats. Gorillas rarely drink water "because they consume succulent vegetation that is comprised of almost half water as well as morning dew", although both mountain and lowland gorillas have been observed drinking.
Gorillas stick to a mainly vegetarian diet, feeding on stems, bamboo shoots and fruits. The silverback gorilla can eat meat and have been documented to eat monkeys. But feeding on meat is a very uncommon incident. They have a longer digestive tract than us that allows herbal foods to roam like a cow's heart, and break down the grass and leaves into the amino acids we get from meat.
Troops
Gorillas live in groups called troops. Troops tend to be made of one adult male or silverback, multiple adult females and their offspring. However, multiple-male troops also exist. Occasionally a male will stay in his birth group and become its second silverback, breeding with some of the females and ultimately taking over its leadership when his father ages or dies.
Sleeping nest
Each gorilla builds its own crude sleeping nest by bending branches and foliage. A new nest is built every night either on the ground or in the trees. The young gorilla sleeps in the mother’s nest at night and rides on her back during the day. The young gorilla sleeps in the mother’s nest at night and rides on her back during the day. Most male gorillas leave the group in which they were born and try to gather females to form their own family group.
Gestation
Females mature at 10–12 years , and males at 11–13 years. A female's first ovulatory cycle occurs when she is six years of age, and is followed by a two-year period of adolescent infertility. The gorilla's gestation period is about 8.5 months. It is difficult to tell if a female gorilla is pregnant since her stomach is large . However, some females have swollen knuckles temporarily during pregnancy. Generally, females give birth to one baby every four to six years. This slow population growth makes it harder for gorillas to recover from any population decline.
The gestation period is about eight and a half months, and births are usually single, though twins occur on rare occasions. A newborn gorilla weighs only about 2 kg. The young gorilla sleeps in the mother’s nest at night and rides on her back during the day.
Mountain gorillas
Mountain gorilla numbers continue to decline from habitat loss as a result of human activities: farming, grazing, logging, and, recently, habitat destruction by refugees. At the same time, ecotourism involving visits by travelers to see gorillas in their natural habitat has contributed to the conservation of the mountain gorilla.
Western gorillas
western gorillas are more numerous than their eastern counterparts, because their populations continue to decline from the effects of poaching and habitat loss. Cross River gorillas are at the greatest risk, with adults numbering fewer .
Eastern gorillas
The eastern lowland gorilla is also known as Grauer’s gorilla. The eastern lowland gorilla’s range has declined by at least a quarter over the last 50 years. Estimated that there were only 16,900 of the animals left in the wild. the eastern lowland gorilla’s population may have declined by half or more. As humans have moved from high-density regions in the East into the gorilla’s territory, they have destroyed and fragmented much of the animal’s forest habitat to make room for farming and livestock.
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