Gorillia's

 

This week we are looking at gorillas, they are gentle giants and display many human-like behaviours and emotions, such as laughter and sadness. In fact, gorillas share 98.3% of their genetic code with humans, making them our closest cousins after chimpanzees and bonobos.

They are the largest of the great apes, they are stocky animals with broad chests and shoulders, large, human-like hands, and small eyes set into hairless faces. There are two gorilla species—the eastern and western gorilla—live in equatorial Africa, separated by about 560 miles of Congo Basin forest. Each has a lowland and upland subspecies.

They live in family groups of usually five to 10, but sometimes two to more than 50, led by a dominant adult male—or silverback—that can hold his position for years, if not decades. The bond between the silverback and his females forms the basis of gorilla social life.

Females become sexually mature around seven or eight years old but don’t begin to breed until a couple of years later. Males mature at an even greater age. 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. This low rate of reproduction makes it difficult for gorillas to recover from population declines.\

The gestation period for gorillas is approximately 255 days. After birth, a newborn gorilla weighs about 2 kg and is completely dependent on its mother for the first three months of its life. The young gorilla will sleep in its mother’s nest at night and ride on her back during the day.

However, mountain gorillas, a subspecies of the eastern gorilla, are the exception and have been increasing over the last few decades, a true conservation success story.

This achievement is partially due to the ongoing efforts and collaboration of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), a unique coalition of three international conservation organizations, WWF, Conservation International, and Fauna & Flora, which continues to ensure the long-term survival of mountain gorillas.

Conservation efforts by WWF, other organizations, and governments are making a difference for gorillas. The population of mountain gorillas has continued to increase in recent years, leading to its downlisting from Critically Endangered to Endangered in November 2018.

The life expectancy of gorillas in the wild is approximately 35 years, but in captivity, they have been known to live into their 40s.

They are vegetarian, though the two species differ slightly in their preferences. Eastern gorillas consume leaves, stalks, and shoots, while western gorillas consume more fruit. They also wade into swampy clearings to eat aquatic plants. Overall, primates are typically omnivorous because their digestive systems can process both vegetation and animal matter. However, gorillas do not typically eat larger mammals. Gorillas spend much of their time foraging and resting, traveling only a few hundred meters between feedings.