Gorillas - Wonders of the Jungle!

I love gorillas. Every time I go to the Zoo it is a must to stop by the gorilla exhibit to watch these remarkable creatures. They are so human like it seems unbelievable. Of course their DNA being 97% to 98% identical to humans probably is the reason why they act some much like us. Gorillas are the closest living relatives to the human being after two different chimpanzee species.

There are currently three different species of gorillas, The Western Lowland Gorilla, the Eastern Lowland Gorilla, and the Mountain Gorilla. All of these gorillas live in various parts of Africa and the differences between them are only slight. However, there has been some debate on there being two other subspecies of gorillas, but the experts haven’t fully recognized them. The gorillas that you see in the Zoo are Western Lowland Gorillas. There are approximately 550 Western Lowland Gorillas in captivity all around the world with 23 of them being at Zoo Atlanta.

A typical male gorilla weighs 300 to 500 pounds and is 5 feet 6 inches tall when standing upright and 4 feet 6 inches tall at normal stance. On the other hand, the females weigh anywhere from 150 to 250 pounds, and they stand 5 feet tall when upright and 3 feet 6 inches tall when at normal stance. The color of a gorilla is black or brown-gray. They have a black skin on their chests, palms, and face and once a male has matured he develops a silver back, which is where the name "Silverback" comes from. A Silverback is the dominant male of the group.

The female gorilla reaches sexual maturity at 10-12 years of age. The gestation period for a female gorilla is 8 and a half months. They normally wait 3 to 4 years between births, due to the fact that their infants stay with them up to 3 or 4 years. A male gorilla reaches maturity at 11 to 13 years of age. Gorillas are very social animals, living in groups of 3 to 30. A typical group of gorillas consists of a silverback, one immature silverback, and one immature male and three to four adult females and three to six young gorillas under the age of eight. A female will leave the group if the silverback is her father and there are no other suitable mates. An adult male usually leaves the group after sexual maturity and will go off and start his own group or join a group of bachelor gorillas.

Gorillas have a very long life expectancy of 30 to 50 years. Gorillas spend a good part of their day eating leaves, tubers, flowers, fruit, fungus and some insects. Their favorites being bamboo, thistles and wild celery, also a very interesting fact about them is they do not drink water. They get all their moisture from their food.

Now that you know a little bit about these incredible human like creatures, I urge you to go to your local Zoo and pay them a visit. See for yourself how human like they are. You will be amazed at how they care for their young and how they play just like we do.

Finally, I leave you with two interesting facts about gorillas. Gorillas recognize each other by their face and body shape. Also, each gorilla has a unique nose print.

Resources:
http://www.koko.org/about/facts.html