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| SILVERBACK MALE |
Gorillas are man’s closest relatives. The Gorilla
became known as aggressive and ferocious but it is completely unfounded. He is the largest primate. The gorilla is a
vegetarian and of gently nature.
It is thought that gorillas at their beginning lived
in trees but today only the younger members are climbing and the adult stay on
the ground because they are too heavy. Mother Nature provided them with strong
grasping fingers and thumb for gripping. Their arms are very strong and
designed for swinging from trees to trees. It also has, like man, a good
binocular vision for judging distances.
Although very well equipped for climbing trees it is only the young ones
which climb.
The adult stay on the ground and walk on its feet
and pivoting on his knuckles of its hands.
The colour of its fur can vary. The western lowland
gorilla living in the Cameron, Central ~African Republic, Gabon, Congo and
Equatorial Africa has a brown-greycoat. The well known male silversaddle
extends to their rump and thighs.
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| WESTERN GORILLAS |
The eastern lowland gorilla living in easy Zaire in
the forests of Lualaba, or Upper Congo River, to the foothills, has a black
coat. The male silver saddle is smaller but its chest is larger and so are his
jaws and teeth.
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| LOWLAND GORILLAS |
The mountain gorillas are living in Zaire, Rwanda
and Uganda at an altitude of 1650-3790m. They are in the foothills of the
Virunga volcanoes and mountains bordering Lake Kivu. It is very much like the eastern gorilla but has
lager jaws, teeth, longer hairs, especially on the arms
It mainly eats leaves and stems and there is plentiful
in his habitat but they have to eat huge amount. They live in family groups and move slowly
about in their territory which can range from 5 to 30sqkm. They never stay a
long time and it gives the plants to grow again. They feed in the mornings and
afternoons. Midday they take a rest and at night they make nests from leaves
and branches and sleep in it.
They eat a wide range of vegetation but prefer
plants with stringy stems. They are also fussy eaters like all primates. It had
been seen they pull their food apart and if there are any discolouring they
throw it away.
FAMILY
It
is the adult silver back which is the centre of the family group. He has a favourite female and she is second
in command. The rest of the family has
to establish their status in the group.
Other males might be challenging the dominate male
of the group for his harem but he mostly get sent off by showing their teeth,
chest beating and hooting. Sometimes young males chases away the old dominate
male. The new male will kill all the babies fathered by the old male and start
mating with the females to establish his own family.
Baby gorilla
starts to crawl at the age of nine weeks. Till such time it clings to his
mother belly. It is weaned at an about three and half years of age, and then
the mother starts mating again. However, the baby is still not able to fend for
itself and half of the babies die. An incoming male sometimes kill the baby
which is not his own and therefore the female makes sure to chose a very strong
male who is able to defend his family.
The female is not sexually mature until it is seven
or eight years old but only starts breeding when it is ten years old. The male reaches adult hood at the age of
15-20 years old.
GORILLAS
AND MAN
Chimpanzee and Gorillas are the closest to man. Man has no tail and walks upright. Both man and gorilla are intelligent. The similarity
is also in the bone, muscles and internal organs. The difference is that the gorillas
have shorter toes and longer arms. His big toes are thumb-like.
The gorilla received a name for being fierce but it
was due to the earlier explorers to make out they had great courage. Therefore for many years it was believed that
the gorilla was dangerous. It was discovered that the male gorilla only attacks
when he feels his family group is threatened and with that his breeding rights.
Thousands of tourist travel to Rwanda to watch
gorillas and are within a few metres from them. Nobody ever has been attacked.
CONSERVATION
Mountains gorillas are in great danger of
extinction. The main reason is that the forests round the Virunga volcanoes
were cleared for agricultural use. It is
thought that there are only 350 gorillas left in the wild. In spite of foothills
of Virunga Mountains have been declared a National Park and the gorillas are a
declared a protective animals a terrible trade in skulls and severed hands continues.
They are sold on to tourists as ‘souvenirs’. There again if the tourists wouldn’t
be so pathetic as to buy it the natives would not kill them. It is again the
demand which causes the damage.
At first the poachers kills the male with a spear.
Then they kill the mother and take the babies for selling them. The buyer couldn’t
care less if the young gorilla dies soon after mostly from the wrong food and
emotional shock. All this is a disgraceful
way to behave and to destroy such magnificent animals.
The lowland gorillas are 9,000 – 10,000 are in the
wild and the eastern gorillas are assumed to be 4,000 but nevertheless they
also suffer of loss of habitation and illegal hunting.
