Western lowland gorillas' diets are high in fiber, including leaves, stems, fruit, piths, flowers, bark, invertebrates, and soil. Wild western lowland gorillas are known to use tools. A group's home range may be as large as 30 km 2 (12 sq mi), but is not actively defended. Western lowland gorillas are long-lived and may survive for as long as 40 years in the wild. Due to the long gestation time, long period of parental care, and infant mortality, a female gorilla will only give birth to an offspring that survives to maturity every six to eight years. The interval between births, therefore, is long, which partly explains the slow population growth rates that make the western lowland gorilla so vulnerable to poaching. Females transfer to another group before breeding, which begins at eight to nine years old they care for their young infants for the first three to four years of their lives. A dominant male silverback heads the group, with younger males usually leaving the group when they reach maturity. Such groups are composed of at least one male, several females and their offspring. Western lowland gorillas live in groups that vary in size from two to twenty individuals. The Cross River gorilla differs from the western lowland gorilla in both skull and tooth dimensions. Another source describes the weight of wild male western lowland gorillas as 146 kg (322 lb). Captive western gorillas average 157 kg (346 lb) in males and 80 kg (176 lb) in females. Males average 167 cm (5 ft 5.7 in) although reaching a height up to 176 cm (5 ft 9.3 in), with males having an average weight of 168 kilograms (370 lb) and females weighing 58 to 72 kilograms (128 to 159 lb). Western lowland gorillas have black, dark grey or dark brown-grey hair with a brownish forehead. Western lowland gorillas are generally lighter colored than eastern gorillas. Only 250 to 300 of the only other western gorilla subspecies, the Cross river gorilla, are thought to remain.Ĭomparison with a 1.75-metre (5 ft 9 in) human (right) Nearly all of the individuals of this taxon belong to the western lowland gorilla subspecies, whose population is approximately 95,000 individuals. Western lowland gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla)Īngola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The population is recognised as two subspecies: The author selected the specific epithet for the name given by Hanno to "wild men" he had noted on the east coast of Africa, presumed by Savage to be a species of orang. Both subspecies are listed Critically Endangered.Ī formal description of the species was provided by Thomas Savage in 1847, allying the new species to an earlier description of the chimpanzee as Troglodytes gorilla in a group of eastern simians he referred to as " orangs". Two subspecies are recognised, Gorilla gorilla diehli (Cross River gorilla) is limited to a smaller range in the north at the border of Cameroon and Nigeria. Large and robust with males weighing around 168 kilograms (370 lb), the hair is significantly lighter in color than the eastern gorilla, Gorilla beringei, and geographically isolated from them in a region at the midwest of the African continent. The western gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla) is a great ape found in Africa, one of two species of the hominid genus Gorilla. Cross River gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla diehli)
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