The Baby Gorilla

The Young Gorilla

FACT FILE: Gorilla

Swahili Name:  Gorila or N'gagi

Scientific Name:            Gorilla gorilla beringei

Size:     Up to 6 feet tall

Weight: 300 to 425 pounds

Lifespan:        Gorilaslive   53 years in captivity

Habitat:          Gorilas like dense forest, rain forest

Diet:      Gorilas eat any vegetarian

Gestation:         Vegetarian

Predators:         gorila fear Leopards, crocodiles, humans

Few animals have sparked the imagination of man as much as the gorilla, the largest of the living primates and the last member of the ape family known to science. Most gorillas live in inaccessible regions in various dense forests in tropical Africa, and only in the last 30 years have scientists learned details of their life in the wild.

A chain of eight volcanoes known as the Virunga Volcanoes runs through a western section of the Rift Valley, forming part of the border between Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and Rwanda. These spectacular mountains and the nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda are the last refuges of the most endangered of the gorilla subspecies, the mountain gorilla. Only about 630 of these individuals remain.

Physical Characteristics

The gorilla is massive, with a short, thick trunk and broad chest and shoulders. Its eyes and ears are dwarfed by its large head and hairless, shiny black muzzle. Older males develop a crown of muscle and hair that makes the head look even longer. The arms are longer than the stubby legs. The fully adult male mountain gorilla is twice as large as the female.

Habitat

The most serious threat to gorillas is habitat loss. The rich volcanic soil of the Virungas is as highly valued as farming land. In Rwanda, Uganda and Congo, a regional conservation program stressing the importance of maintaining the virgin forest watershed and the need to habituate some groups of gorillas for tourist visits has helped ease encroachment.

Behavior

The gorilla is shy and retiring rather than ferocious and treacherous. It usually seeks no trouble unless harassed but will valiantly defend its family group if threatened. Family groups are close-knit and may have up to 30 members, but even if smaller, the group usually consists of at least one older male, one or more females and a few juveniles.

Gorillas have strong attachments to members of their own group and even when groups meet and mingle and then subsequently part, each animal tends to remain with its respective unit. An adult male called a silverback named for the silvery gray hairs on its back normally leads each group, serving as its chief protector and defender. Gorillas continually wander through their home ranges of 10 to 15 square miles, feeding and resting throughout the day. Because gorillas are nomadic, they build new nests each day at dusk, constructing them of bent branches in a tree or of grasses on the ground.

A group's hierarchy, ritualized behavior and bluff charges between males prevents conflict among and between groups. Gorillas scream, grab foliage and stuff it in their mouths, stand erect on their hind legs, tear up and throw plants, drum on the chest with hands or fists, stamp their feet, strike the ground with the palms of their hands and gallop in a mock attack on all fours.

Diet

Animals of this size need a lot of food, and the vegetarian gorilla is no exception. Although they eat a variety of plants, favorites include wild celery, bamboo, thistles, stinging nettles, bedstraw and certain fruit. These plants seem to provide sufficient moisture so that gorillas do not need water.

Caring for the Young

Mountain gorillas have a slow rate of reproduction. Females give birth for the first time at about age 10 and will have more offspring every three or four years. A male begins to breed between 12 and 15 years, when he is in charge of his own group. Able to conceive for only about three days each month, the female produces a single young.

Newborn gorillas are weak and tiny, weighing in at about 4 pounds. Their movements are as awkward as those of human infants, but their development is roughly twice as fast. At 3 or 4 months, the gorilla infant can sit upright and can stand with support soon after. It suckles regularly for about a year and is gradually weaned at about 31/2 years, when it becomes more independent.

Predators

The gorilla's only known enemies are leopards and humans. Crocodiles are potentially dangerous to lowland gorillas. In western Africa, gorillas are commonly hunted for meat or in retaliation for crop raiding, but in eastern Africa they have been the victims of snares and traps set for antelope and other animals. Poachers have also destroyed entire family groups in their attempts to capture infant gorillas for zoos, while others are killed to sell their heads and hands as trophies.

Did you know?

Gorillas rarely attack humans. But in an encounter a person should stay still and refrain from staring or pointing at the gorilla.

Gorillas are susceptible to various parasites and diseases, especially to pneumonia during the long, cold wet seasons.

I am an only child and I am called Gorilla. At birth I weighed a kilogramme and a half. My mother told me and she knows all about these things. I began to eat leaves when I was two and a half months old. At six months, when I could i un and climb, I was eating other vegetation and fruit that grow in the African forest, and still drinking my mother’s delicious milk. Today I am one year old and. I’ve stopped drinking milk. I’m almost full grown and I’m strong, even though my mother says I’m not and wants me to stay with her for another two years. How boring! This is more or less what the young gorilla would say if he could speak. Like all children, a baby gorila os always is impatient to be a grown-up. This young gorilla is five months old. In another twenty months he will begin to frolic about, fight with other young gorillas and climb trees, swinging from branch to branch with great agility.  The baby gorilla is very attached to his mother; he rides on her back

The favorite pastime of young gorillas is chasing, wrestling and shoulders and is happy to be carried about the forest. If he hurts pretending to bite each other. If their games become too violent adult intervenes and separates them,