Gorillas are large, primarily herbivorous, great apes that live in the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus Gorilla is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five subspecies. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 96 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the bonobos and chimpanzees.

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Gorillas are the largest living primates, reaching heights between 1.25 and 1.8 m (4 ft 1 in and 5 ft 11 in), weights between 68 and 227 kg (150 and 500 lb), and arm spans up to 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in), depending on species and sex. They tend to live in troops, with the leader being called a silverback. The eastern gorilla is distinguished from the western by darker fur colour and some other minor morphological differences. Gorillas tend to live 35–40 years in the wild.\n

Gorillas' natural habitats cover tropical or subtropical forests in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although their range covers a small percentage of Sub-Saharan Africa, gorillas cover a wide range of elevations. The mountain gorilla inhabits the Albertine Rift montane cloud forests of the Virunga Volcanoes, ranging in altitude from 2,200 to 4,300 m (7,200 to 14,100 ft). Lowland gorillas live in dense forests and lowland swamps and marshes as low as sea level, with western lowland gorillas living in Central West African countries and eastern lowland gorillas living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo near its border with Rwanda.\n

There are thought to be around 316,000 western gorillas in the wild, and 5,000 eastern gorillas. Both species are classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN; all subspecies are classified as Critically Endangered with the exception of the mountain gorilla, which is classified as Endangered. There are many threats to their survival, such as poaching, habitat destruction, and disease, which threaten the survival of the species. However, conservation efforts have been successful in some areas where they live.\n

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History and etymology

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The word gorilla comes from the history of Hanno the Navigator (c. 500 BC), a Carthaginian explorer on an expedition to the west African coast to the area that later became Sierra Leone. Members of the expedition encountered \"savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillae\". It is unknown whether what the explorers encountered were what we now call gorillas, another species of ape or monkeys, or humans. Skins of gorillai women, brought back by Hanno, are reputed to have been kept at Carthage until Rome destroyed the city 350 years later at the end of the Punic Wars, 146 BC.\n

In 1625 Andrew Battel mentioned the existence of the animal, under the name Pongo:\n

This Pongo is in all proportion like a man, but... he is more like a Giant in stature, than a man: for he is very tall, [and] hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long haire vpon his browes. His face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. His bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke, and it is a dunnish colour. . . Hee goeth alwaies vpon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped on the nape of his necke, when he goeth upon the ground... They goe many together, and kill many Negroes that trauaile in the Woods . . . Those Pongos are neuer taken aliue, because they are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them...

A century and a half after Battel's story was published, one writer called Radermacher wrote that \"the large species, described by Buffon and other authors as of the size of a man, is held by many to be a Chimera.\"\n

The American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage and naturalist Jeffries Wyman first described the western gorilla in 1847 from specimens obtained in Liberia. They called it Troglodytes gorilla, using the then-current name of the chimpanzee genus. The species name was derived from Ancient Greek Γόριλλαι (gorillai) 'name of a tribe of hairy women', as described by Hanno.\n

Evolution and classification

The closest relatives of gorillas are the other two Homininae genera, chimpanzees and humans, all of them having diverged from a common ancestor about 7 million years ago. Human gene sequences differ only 1.6% on average from the sequences of corresponding gorilla genes, but there is further difference in how many copies each gene has.\n

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Until recently, gorillas were considered to be a single species, with three subspecies: the western lowland gorilla, the eastern lowland gorilla and the mountain gorilla. There is now agreement that there are two species, each with two subspecies. More recently, a third subspecies has been claimed to exist in one of the species. The separate species and subspecies developed from a single type of gorilla during the Ice Age, when their forest habitats shrank and became isolated from each other. Primatologists continue to explore the relationships between various gorilla populations. The species and subspecies listed here are the ones upon which most scientists agree.\n

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The proposed third subspecies of Gorilla beringei, which has not yet received a trinomen, is the Bwindi population of the mountain gorilla, sometimes called the Bwindi gorilla.\n

Some variations that distinguish the classifications of gorilla include varying density, size, hair colour, length, culture, and facial widths. Population genetics of the lowland gorillas suggest that the western and eastern lowland populations diverged around 261 thousand years ago.\n

Anatomy and physiology

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Gorillas are the largest extant primates. They exhibit sexual dimorphism in body size, as males weigh twice as much as females. On average, adult male gorillas weigh between 136 and 227 kg (300 and 500 lb), while females weigh between 68 and 113 kg (150 and 250 lb). Adult males are 1.4 to 1.8 m (4 ft 7 in to 5 ft 11 in) tall, with arm spans that range between 2.3 and 2.6 m (7 ft 7 in and 8 ft 6 in), whereas females are shorter at 1.25 to 1.5 m (4 ft 1 in to 4 ft 11 in) tall. The arm span exceeds an individual's stature, being about 170% of the body length. The intermembral index is 115. The tallest recorded wild gorilla was a 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in) silverback with an arm span of 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in), a chest breadth of 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in), and a weight of 219 kg (483 lb), that was shot in Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 1938. The heaviest wild gorilla recorded was a 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) silverback shot in Ambam, Cameroon, which weighed 267 kg (589 lb). The tallest recorded gorilla in captivity was Gust, a western lowland gorilla that lived at the Antwerp Zoo that was 2.20 m (7 ft 3 in) tall. Males in captivity can be overweight and reach weights up to 310 kg (683 lb).\n

Gorillas exhibit profound sexual dimorphism in skull shape. Males possesses a tall sagittal crest that is accompanied by a similarly dimorphic occipital crest, although female are known to rarely exhibit similar cranial crests. The sizes of the canine teeth are also sexually dimorphic, as males' are much larger than females'. Gorillas follow the cercopithecoid dental formula of 2.1.2.32.1.2.3 × 2 = 32. The crowns of the incisors are curved lingually. There is a diastema between the maxillary posterior incisor (I2) and the maxillary canine (C–) to accommodate the size of the mandibular canine (C–). The mandibular dentition possesses a canine/P3 honing complex via a tapering enamel surface atop the mesial aspect of the mandibular anterior premolar (P3), which hones the maxillary canine. The molar cusps are sharply defined. The neck is thick, owing to the presence of tall spinous processes atop the cervical vertebrae. The vertebral formula is 7 cervicals, 13 thoracics, 4 lumbars, 6 sacrals, and 3 caudals. The digits of the hands are robust, with the thumb being relatively short and not fully opposable. The hallux of the foot is shorter and held in a more abducted position in G. gorilla than in G. beringei.\n

Adult males are endowed with a conical pad of fibro-fatty tissue atop the crown of the head. Gorillas' nasal openings are variable in shape and size, such that they can be used to identify individual animals. The ears are relatively small, and are held flat against the sides of the head. Callosities known as \"friction skin\" cover the contact zones of the dorsal aspects of the knuckles that facilitate gorillas' knuckle-walking method of locomotion. Like humans, gorillas have individual fingerprints. Females exhibit slight sexual swellings during oestrus. \n

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The colouration of the pelage varies from dull grey to black. Among males, the pelage on the back greys with age. Eastern lowland and mountain gorillas are wholly black with the exception of the silvering of adult males, while the western lowland gorilla is brown-grey with a brownish crown, and exhibits a similar silvering pattern. The silvering of adult male eastern lowland gorillas is restricted to a saddle-shaped area on the back, while it extends to the hips among mountain gorillas, and to the rump and legs among western lowland gorillas. The mountain gorilla has the longest fur among gorilla subspecies. The face is glabrescent, with the exception of the hairy cheeks. Gorillas have dark skin.\n

Studies have shown gorilla blood is not reactive to anti-A and anti-B monoclonal antibodies, which would, in humans, indicate type O blood. Due to novel sequences, it is different enough to not conform with the human ABO blood group system, into which the other great apes fit. Like other non-human great apes, gorillas have a somatic number of 2n = 48.\n

Although gorillas usually locomote by knuckle-walking, they sometimes walk upright for short distances, typically while carrying food or in defensive situations. A 2018 study investigating the hand posture of 77 mountain gorillas at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park found that knuckle walking was done only 60% of the time, and they also supported their weight on their fists, the backs of their hands/feet, and on their palms/soles (with the digits flexed). Such a range of hand postures was previously thought to have been used by only orangutans. Studies of gorilla handedness have yielded varying results, with some arguing for no preference for either hand, and others right-hand dominance for the general population.\n

Gorillas typically live between 35 and 40 years, although captive individuals may live for 50 years or more in rare circumstances. At 69 years, 289 days, Fatou is the oldest known living gorilla. The oldest recorded male gorilla was Ozoum, who lived to be 61 years and 24 days.\n

Distribution and habitat

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Gorillas occur between 6°30' N and 5°30' S, with the exception of a 900 km (560 mi) gap between the ranges of the western G. gorilla and the eastern G. beringei species. The western lowland gorilla is found in swamps and rainforests beneath 1,000 m (3,300 ft) above sea level throughout the 709,000 km2 (274,000 sq mi) western equatorial forest of Africa. Its range is bounded by the Oubangui, Sanaga, and lower Congo rivers. The eastern lowland gorilla is found in lowland and montane bamboo forests 650–2,600 m (2,130–8,530 ft) above sea level across a 112,000 km2 (43,000 sq mi) range bounded by the Lualaba, Lindi, and Luama rivers, and the eastern Albertine Rift. The Cross River and mountain gorillas occur at higher elevations than their subspecific counterparts; the Cross River gorilla occurs 150–1,600 m (490–5,250 ft) above sea level in a 750 km2 (290 sq mi) area of low-lying and submontane forests about 260 km (160 mi) northwest of the western lowland gorilla's range, and the mountain gorilla lives as high as 4,000 m (13,000 ft) above sea level in the Virunga Mountains and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.\n

The average population density is between 0.5 and 1.5 gorillas/km2, though densities as high as 10.6 gorillas/km2 and as low as 0.05 gorillas/km2 have been reported. Populations are frequently concentrated alongside rivers and the boundaries of forests. Preferred habitats include low-altitude swamps adjacent to forests, glades, meadows, and high-altitude forest clearings.\n

Ecology

Diet and activities

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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. Their home ranges vary from 3 to 15 km2 (1.2 to 5.8 sq mi), and their movements range around 500 m (0.31 mi) or less on an average day. Despite eating a few species in each habitat, mountain gorillas have flexible diets and can live in a variety of habitats.\n

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Eastern lowland gorillas have more diverse diets, which vary seasonally. Leaves and pith are commonly eaten, but fruits can make up as much as 25% of their diets. Since fruit is less available, lowland gorillas must travel farther each day, and their home ranges vary from 2.7 to 6.5 km2 (1.0 to 2.5 sq mi), with day ranges 154–2,280 m (0.096–1.417 mi). Eastern lowland gorillas will also eat insects, preferably ants. \n

Western lowland gorillas depend on fruits more than the others and they are more dispersed across their range. They travel even farther than the other gorilla subspecies, at 1,105 m (0.687 mi) per day on average, and have larger home ranges of 7–14 km2 (2.7–5.4 sq mi). Western lowland gorillas have less access to terrestrial herbs, although they can access aquatic herbs in some areas. Termites and ants are also eaten.\n

While traditionally thought of as ground-dwelling apes, a 2025 study found that gorillas can spend significant amounts of time in trees, depending on the area. In both Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Loango National Park, gorillas spend more time climbing trees than those at Virunga. Such behaviours were not necessarily driven by foraging for fruit, which was consumed close to half of the time terrestrially in Loango gorillas and in both Bwindi and Loango they spend a majority of their foraging time in the trees feeding on leaves and other non-fruits. In all three areas, adult females were more arboreal than males. 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.\n

Nesting

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Gorillas construct nests for daytime and night use. Nests tend to be simple aggregations of branches and leaves about 2 to 5 ft (0.61 to 1.52 m) in diameter and are constructed by individuals. Gorillas, unlike chimpanzees or orangutans, tend to sleep in nests on the ground. The young nest with their mothers, but construct nests after three years of age, initially close to those of their mothers. Gorilla nests are distributed arbitrarily and use of tree species for site and construction appears to be opportunistic. Nest-building by great apes is now considered to be not just animal architecture, but as an important instance of tool use.\n

Gorillas make a new nest to sleep on each day; even if remaining in the same place, they do not use the previous one. Usually, they are made an hour before dusk, to be ready to sleep when night falls. Gorillas sleep longer than humans, an average of 12 hours per day.\n

Interspecies interactions

One possible predator of gorillas is the leopard. Gorilla remains have been found in leopard scat, but this may be the result of scavenging. When the group is attacked by humans, leopards, or other gorillas, an individual silverback will protect the group, even at the cost of his own life. Gorillas do not appear to directly compete with chimpanzees in areas where they overlap. When fruit is abundant, gorilla and chimpanzee diets converge, but when fruit is scarce gorillas resort to vegetation. The two apes may also feed on different species, whether fruit or insects. Gorillas and chimpanzees may ignore or avoid each other when feeding on the same tree, but they have also been documented to form social bonds. Conversely, coalitions of chimpanzees have been observed attacking families of gorillas including silverbacks and killing infants.\n

Behaviour

Social structure

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Gorillas live in groups called troops. Troops tend to be made of one adult male or silverback, with a harem of multiple adult females and their offspring. However, multiple-male troops also exist. A silverback is typically more than 12 years of age, and is named after the distinctive patch of silver hair on his back, which comes with maturity. Silverbacks have large canine teeth that also come with maturity. Both males and females tend to emigrate from their natal groups. For mountain gorillas, females disperse from their natal troops more than males. Mountain gorillas and western lowland gorillas also commonly transfer to second new groups.\n

Mature males also tend to leave their groups and establish their own troops by attracting emigrating females. However, male mountain gorillas sometimes stay in their natal troops and become subordinate to the silverback. If the silverback dies, these males may be able to become dominant or mate with the females. This behaviour has not been observed in eastern lowland gorillas. In a single male group, when the silverback dies, the females and their offspring disperse and find a new troop. \n

Without a silverback to protect them, the infants will likely fall victim to infanticide. Joining a new group is likely to be a tactic against this. However, while gorilla troops usually disband after the silverback dies, female eastern lowland gorillas and their offspring have been recorded staying together until a new silverback transfers into the group. This likely serves as protection from leopards.\n

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The silverback is the centre of the troop's attention, making all the decisions, mediating conflicts, determining the movements of the group, leading the others to feeding sites, and taking responsibility for the safety and well-being of the troop. Younger males subordinate to the silverback, known as blackbacks, may serve as backup protection. Blackbacks are aged between 8 and 12 years and lack the silverback hair. The bond that a silverback has with his females forms the core of gorilla social life. Bonds between them are maintained by grooming and staying close together. Females form strong relationships with males to gain mating opportunities and protection from predators and infanticidal outside males. In multi-male groups, a female's relationship with the silverback can give her dominance over the other males, even though they are twice their size.\n

Aggressive behaviours between males and females do occur, but rarely lead to serious injury. Relationships between females may vary. Maternally related females in a troop tend to be friendly towards each other and associate closely. Otherwise, females have few friendly encounters and commonly act aggressively towards each other. Female gorillas within a troop exist within stable dominance hierarchies, with social mobility usually changing with the departure or death of a member. \n

Females may fight for social access to males and a male may intervene. Male gorillas have weak social bonds, particularly in multiple-male groups with apparent dominance hierarchies and strong competition for mates. Males in all-male groups, though, tend to have friendly interactions and socialise through play, grooming, and staying together, and occasionally they even engage in homosexual interactions. Severe aggression is rare in stable groups, but when two mountain gorilla groups meet the two silverbacks can sometimes engage in a fight to the death, using their canines to cause deep, gaping injuries.\n

Reproduction and parenting

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Females mature at 10–12 years (earlier in captivity), 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 estrous cycle lasts 30–33 days, with outward ovulation signs subtle compared to those of chimpanzees. The gestation period lasts 8.5 months. Female mountain gorillas first give birth at 10 years of age and have four-year interbirth intervals. Males can be fertile before reaching adulthood. Gorillas mate year round.\n

Females will purse their lips and slowly approach a male while making eye contact. This serves to urge the male to mount her. If the male does not respond, then she will try to attract his attention by reaching towards him or slapping the ground. In multiple-male groups, solicitation indicates female preference, but females can be forced to mate with multiple males. Males incite copulation by approaching a female and displaying at her or touching her and giving a \"train grunt\". Copulation typically lasts 1–2 minutes, but can last as long as 20 minutes. Recently, gorillas have been observed engaging in face-to-face sex, a trait once considered unique to humans and bonobos.\n

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Gorilla infants are vulnerable and dependent, thus mothers, their primary caregivers, are important to their survival. Male gorillas are not active in caring for the young, but they do play a role in socialising them to other youngsters. The silverback has a largely supportive relationship with the infants in his troop and shields them from aggression within the group. Infants remain in contact with their mothers for the first five months and mothers stay near the silverback for protection. Infants suckle at least once per hour and sleep with their mothers in the same nest.\n

Infants begin to break contact with their mothers after five months, but only for a brief period each time. By 12 months old, infants move up to five m (16 ft) from their mothers. At around 18–21 months, the distance between mother and offspring increases and they regularly spend time away from each other. In addition, nursing decreases to once every two hours. Infants spend only half of their time with their mothers by 30 months. They enter their juvenile period at their third year, and this lasts until their sixth year. At this time, gorillas are weaned and they sleep in a separate nest from their mothers. After their offspring are weaned, females begin to ovulate and soon become pregnant again. The presence of play partners, including the silverback, minimizes conflicts in weaning between mother and offspring.\n

Communication

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Twenty-five distinct vocalisations are recognised, many of which are used primarily for group communication within dense vegetation. Sounds classified as grunts and barks are heard most frequently while traveling, and indicate the whereabouts of individual group members. They may also be used during social interactions when discipline is required. Screams and roars signal alarm or warning, and are produced most often by silverbacks. Deep, rumbling belches suggest contentment and are heard frequently during feeding and resting periods. They are the most common form of intragroup communication.\n

For this reason, conflicts are most often resolved by displays and other threat behaviours that are intended to intimidate without becoming physical. As a result, fights do not occur very frequently. The ritualized charge display is unique to gorillas. The entire sequence has nine steps: (1) progressively quickening hooting, (2) symbolic feeding, (3) rising bipedally, (4) throwing vegetation, (5) chest-beating with cupped hands, (6) one leg kick, (7) sideways running, two-legged to four-legged, (8) slapping and tearing vegetation, and (9) thumping the ground with palms to end display.\n

A gorilla's chest-beat may vary in frequency depending on its size. Smaller ones tend to have higher frequencies, while larger ones tend to be lower. They also do it the most when females are ready to mate.\n

Intelligence

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Gorillas are considered highly intelligent. A few individuals in captivity, such as Koko, have been taught a subset of sign language. Like the other great apes, gorillas can laugh, grieve, have \"rich emotional lives\", develop strong family bonds, make and use tools, and think about the past and future. Some researchers believe gorillas have spiritual feelings or religious sentiments. They have been shown to have cultures in different areas revolving around different methods of food preparation, and will show individual colour preferences.\n

Tool use

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The following observations were made by a team led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society in September 2005. Gorillas are now known to use tools in the wild. A female gorilla in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo was recorded using a stick as if to gauge the depth of water whilst crossing a swamp. A second female was seen using a tree stump as a bridge and also as a support whilst fishing in the swamp. This means all of the great apes are now known to use tools.\n

In September 2005, a two-and-a-half-year-old gorilla in the Republic of Congo was discovered using rocks to smash open palm nuts inside a game sanctuary. While this was the first such observation for a gorilla, over 40 years previously, chimpanzees had been seen using tools in the wild 'fishing' for termites. Nonhuman great apes are endowed with semiprecision grips, and have been able to use both simple tools and even weapons, such as improvising a club from a convenient fallen branch.\n

Scientific study

American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage obtained the first specimens (the skull and other bones) during his time in Liberia. The first scientific description of gorillas from near the river Gaboon dates back to an article by Savage and the naturalist Jeffries Wyman in 1847 in Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, where Troglodytes gorilla is described, now known as the western gorilla. Other species of gorilla were described in the next few years.\n

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The explorer Paul Du Chaillu was the first westerner to see a live gorilla during his travel through western equatorial Africa from 1856 to 1859. He brought dead specimens to the UK in 1861.\n

The first systematic study was not conducted until the 1920s, when Carl Akeley of the American Museum of Natural History traveled to Africa to hunt for an animal to be shot and stuffed. On his first trip, he was accompanied by his friends Mary Bradley, a mystery writer, her husband, and their young daughter Alice, who would later write science fiction under the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr. After their trip, Mary Bradley wrote On the Gorilla Trail. She later became an advocate for the conservation of gorillas, and wrote several more books (mainly for children). In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Robert Yerkes and his wife Ava helped further the study of gorillas when they sent Harold Bigham to Africa. Yerkes also wrote a book in 1929 about the great apes.\n

After World War II, George Schaller was one of the first researchers to go into the field and study primates. In 1959, he conducted a systematic study of the mountain gorilla in the wild and published his work. Years later, at the behest of Louis Leakey and the National Geographic, Dian Fossey conducted a much longer and more comprehensive study of the mountain gorilla. When she published her work, many misconceptions and myths about gorillas were finally disproved, including the myth that gorillas are violent.\n

Western lowland gorillas (G. g. gorilla) are believed to be one of the zoonotic origins of HIV/AIDS. The SIVgor Simian immunodeficiency virus that infects them is similar to a certain strain of HIV-1.\n

Genome sequencing

The gorilla became the next-to-last great ape genus to have its genome sequenced. The first gorilla genome was generated with short read and Sanger sequencing with DNA from a female western lowland gorilla named Kamilah. This gave scientists further insight into the evolution and origin of humans. Although chimpanzees being the closest extant relatives of humans, 15% of the human genome was found to be more similar to that of the gorilla. In addition, 30% of the gorilla genome \"is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression.\" Analysis of the gorilla genome has cast doubt on the idea that the rapid evolution of hearing genes gave rise to language in humans, as it also occurred in gorillas.\n

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Captivity

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Gorillas became highly prized by western zoos since the 19th century, though the earliest attempts to keep them in captive facilities ended in their early death. In the late 1920s, the care of captive gorillas significantly improved. Colo (22 December 1956 – 17 January 2017) of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium was the first gorilla to be born in captivity.\n

Captive gorillas exhibit stereotypic behaviors, including eating disorders‍—‍such as regurgitation, reingestion and coprophagy‍—‍self-injurious or conspecific aggression, pacing, rocking, sucking of fingers or lip smacking, and overgrooming. Negative vigilance of visitor behaviors have been identified as starting, posturing and charging at visitors. Groups of bachelor gorillas containing young silverbacks have significantly higher levels of aggression and wounding rates than mixed age and sex groups.\n

The use of both internal and external privacy screens on exhibit windows has been shown to alleviate stresses from visual effects of high crowd densities, leading to decreased stereotypic behaviors in the gorillas. Playing naturalistic auditory stimuli as opposed to classical music, rock music, or no auditory enrichment (which allows for crowd noise, machinery, etc. to be heard) has been noted to reduce stress behavior as well. Enrichment modifications to feed and foraging, where clover-hay is added to an exhibit floor, decrease stereotypic activities while simultaneously increasing positive food-related behaviors.\n

Recent research on captive gorilla welfare emphasizes a need to shift to individual assessments instead of a one-size-fits-all group approach to understanding how welfare increases or decreases based on a variety of factors. Individual characteristics such as age, sex, personality and individual histories are essential in understanding that stressors will affect each individual gorilla and their welfare differently.\n

Conservation status

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All species (and subspecies) of gorilla are listed as endangered or critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. All gorillas are listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), meaning that international export/import of the species, including in parts and derivatives, is regulated. In 2016, around 316,000 western lowland gorillas were thought to exist in the wild, 4,000 in zoos, thanks to conservation; eastern lowland gorillas have a population of under 5,000 in the wild and 24 in zoos. Mountain gorillas are the most severely endangered, with an estimated population of about 880 left in the wild and none in zoos. \n

Threats to gorilla survival include habitat destruction and poaching for the bushmeat trade. Gorillas are closely related to humans, and are susceptible to diseases that humans also get infected by. In 2004, a population of several hundred gorillas in the Odzala National Park, Republic of Congo was essentially wiped out by the Ebola virus. \n

A 2006 study published in Science concluded more than 5,000 gorillas may have died in recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in central Africa. The researchers indicated in conjunction with commercial hunting of these apes, the virus creates \"a recipe for rapid ecological extinction\". In captivity, it has also been observed that gorillas can also be infected with COVID-19.\n

Conservation efforts include the Great Apes Survival Project, a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme and the UNESCO, and also an international treaty, the Agreement on the Conservation of Gorillas and Their Habitats, concluded under UNEP-administered Convention on Migratory Species. The Gorilla Agreement is the first legally binding instrument exclusively targeting gorilla conservation; it came into effect in June 2008. Governments of countries where gorillas live placed a ban on their killing and trading, but weak law enforcement still poses a threat to them, since the governments rarely apprehend poachers, traders and consumers that rely on gorillas for profit.\n

Cultural significance

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In Cameroon's Lebialem highlands, folk stories connect people and gorillas via totems; a gorilla's death means the connected person will die also. This creates a local conservation ethic. Many different indigenous peoples interact with wild gorillas. Some have detailed knowledge; the Baka have words to distinguish at least ten types of gorilla individuals, by sex, age, and relationships. In 1861, alongside tales of hunting enormous gorillas, the traveller and anthropologist Paul Du Chaillu reported the Cameroonian story that a pregnant woman who sees a gorilla will give birth to one.\n

In 1911, the anthropologist Albert Jenks noted the Bulu people's knowledge of gorilla behaviour and ecology, and their gorilla stories. In one such story, \"The Gorilla and the Child\", a gorilla speaks to people, seeking help and trust, and stealing a baby; a man accidentally kills the baby while attacking the gorilla. Even far from where gorillas live, savannah tribes pursue \"cult-like worship\" of the apes. Some beliefs are widespread among indigenous peoples. The Fang name for gorilla is ngi while the Bulu name is njamong; the root ngi means fire, denoting a positive energy. From the Central African Republic to Cameroon and Gabon, stories of reincarnations as gorillas, totems, and transformations similar to those recorded by Du Chaillu are still told in the 21st century.\n

Since gaining international attention, gorillas have been a recurring element of many aspects of popular culture and media. They were usually portrayed as murderous and aggressive. Inspired by Emmanuel Frémiet's Gorilla Carrying off a Woman, gorillas have been depicted kidnapping human women. This theme was used in films such as Ingagi (1930) and most notably King Kong (1933). \n

The comedic play The Gorilla, which debuted in 1925, featured an escaped gorilla taking a woman from her house. Several films used the \"escaped gorilla\" trope including The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942), The Gorilla Man (1943), Gorilla at Large (1954) and the Disney cartoons The Gorilla Mystery (1930) and Donald Duck and the Gorilla (1944).\n

Gorillas have been used as opponents to jungle-themed heroes such as Tarzan and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, as well as superheroes. The DC Comics supervillain Gorilla Grodd is an enemy of the Flash. Gorillas also serve as antagonists in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes. More positive and sympathetic portrayals of gorillas include the films Son of Kong (1933), Mighty Joe Young (1949), Gorillas in the Mist (1988) and Instinct (1999) and the 1992 novel Ishmael. Gorillas have been featured in video games as well, notably Donkey Kong.\n

\nIn American English, the idiom \"800-pound gorilla\" is a common way to refer to an entity so powerful that it can act without regard to the rights of others or the law. The phrase is rooted in a riddle joke about how a human cannot stop a gorilla:

Q. Where does an 800-pound gorilla sit?
\nA. Anywhere it wants to.

The term can describe a powerful geopolitical and military force, or, in business, a powerful corporate entity that has such a large majority percentage of whatever market they compete within that they can use that strength to crush would-be competitors. In law, the phrase occurs as a characterization of judges vs. courts; as in: \"Standard/Court Rule\" vs \"Gorilla/Judge Rule\". The metaphor has been mixed, on occasion, with the metaphor of the elephant in the room.\n

References

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Literature cited

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External links

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Animal Diversity Web – includes photos, artwork, and skull specimens of Gorilla gorilla
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting International Gorilla Conservation Programme (Video) (archived 5 September 2007)
Primate Info Net Gorilla Factsheet Archived 22 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine – taxonomy, ecology, behavior and conservation
San Diego Zoo Gorilla Factsheet – features a video and photos
World Wildlife Fund: Gorillas – conservation, facts and photos (archived 16 October 2004)
Gorilla protection – Gorilla conservation (archived 29 November 2010)
Welcome to the Year of the Gorilla 2009 Archived 18 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine
Virunga National Park – The Official Website for Virunga National Park, the Last Refuge for Congo's Mountain Gorillas (archived 22 September 2010)
Human Timeline (Interactive) – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History (August 2016).
Genome of Gorilla gorilla, via Ensembl
Genome of Gorilla gorilla (version Kamilah_GGO_v0/gorGor6), via UCSC Genome Browser
Data of the genome of Gorilla gorilla, via NCBI
Data of the genome assembly of Gorilla gorilla (version Kamilah_GGO_v0/gorGor6), via NCBI

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History and etymology

Evolution and classification

Anatomy and physiology

Distribution and habitat

Ecology

Diet and activities

Nesting

Interspecies interactions

Behaviour

Social structure

Reproduction and parenting

Communication

Intelligence

Tool use

Scientific study

Genome sequencing

Captivity

Conservation status

Cultural significance

See also

References

Literature cited

External links

Silverbacks

Broadcast History