50 Fun Facts About Gorilla

What is the leader of a gorilla troop called?

The name comes from the saddle of silver hair that grows on a male's back once he matures, usually after age 12.

What are the two recognised species of gorilla?

Each species has two subspecies, and a possible third, the Bwindi population, has been proposed for the eastern species.

Which two animals are more closely related to humans than gorillas are?

Even so, about 15% of the human genome turns out to be closer to the gorilla than to the chimpanzee.

Gorillas hold which distinction among the primates?

Big males stand up to 1.8 m and weigh up to 227 kg, with arm spans reaching 2.6 m.

How long do gorillas typically live in the wild?

Zoo gorillas occasionally pass 50; Fatou, the oldest known, was still alive past 69.

The word 'gorilla' traces back to the account of which ancient Carthaginian explorer?

His expedition down the West African coast met hairy 'savage people' its interpreters called Gorillae; nobody knows if they were apes or humans.

Skins of Hanno's 'gorillai' were reputedly kept in Carthage until which event?

That was the end of the Punic Wars, some 350 years after Hanno's voyage.

Under what name did Andrew Battel describe a gorilla-like creature in 1625?

He wrote that ten men could not hold one and that it walked with its hands clasped behind its neck.

Who scientifically described the western gorilla in 1847, from specimens obtained in Liberia?

They named it Troglodytes gorilla, borrowing the chimpanzee genus name of the day.

Human gene sequences differ from their gorilla equivalents by roughly what percentage on average?

The bigger differences lie in how many copies of each gene the two species carry.

Roughly how long ago did gorillas diverge from the common ancestor they share with humans and chimps?

All three are grouped in the subfamily Homininae.

Which geographical feature separates the ranges of the two gorilla species?

The western gorilla lives in west central Africa and the eastern in east central Africa, with the river system between them.

How much do wild male gorillas typically weigh?

Females are roughly half that; captive males can balloon to 310 kg.

The heaviest wild gorilla on record, shot in Ambam, Cameroon, weighed how much?

The tallest wild one, at 1.95 m, was shot in northern Kivu in 1938; captive Gust of Antwerp Zoo reached 2.20 m.

Which feature do gorillas share with humans that can identify individuals?

Their blood, however, does not fit the human ABO system at all, unlike the other great apes.

A 2018 study of Bwindi mountain gorillas found they knuckle-walked only what share of the time?

They also walked on fists, the backs of their hands and their palms, a range of postures once thought unique to orangutans.

Fatou, the oldest known gorilla, celebrated which birthday in 2026?

The oldest male ever, Ozoum, reached 61; wild gorillas rarely pass 40.

What makes up the bulk of a mountain gorilla's diet?

Fruit is only about 1.7% of what they eat; a Bwindi male gets through some 18.8 kg of vegetation a day.

Which gorilla subspecies depends most on fruit and travels furthest each day?

They average about 1,105 m a day and also eat termites and ants.

Why do gorillas rarely drink water?

Morning dew on the plants adds to it, though both mountain and lowland gorillas have been seen drinking.

How often do gorillas build a new sleeping nest?

Even if the troop stays put, yesterday's nest is abandoned; unlike chimps and orangutans, gorillas usually nest on the ground.

Roughly how many hours a day do gorillas sleep?

Nests are usually built about an hour before dusk so they are ready when night falls.

Which animal is the only likely natural predator of adult gorillas?

Gorilla remains turn up in leopard scat, though that could be scavenging; a silverback will die defending his troop.

Which other apes have been observed forming coalitions to attack gorilla families and kill infants?

The two species mostly ignore or avoid each other and have even been seen forming social bonds.

Younger subordinate males aged 8 to 12 in a gorilla troop are known as what?

They lack the silver saddle and may act as backup protection for the troop.

How long is a gorilla's gestation?

Female mountain gorillas first give birth around age 10 and then roughly every four years.

How many distinct gorilla vocalisations are recognised?

Deep rumbling belches signal contentment and are the most common sound within a troop.

How many steps make up the gorilla's ritualised charge display?

It runs from quickening hoots and symbolic feeding through chest-beating with cupped hands to thumping the ground with the palms.

How do gorillas beat their chests?

Bigger gorillas produce lower-frequency beats, so the sound advertises size; males beat most when females are ready to mate.

In 2005, a wild female gorilla in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park used a stick to do what?

It was the first documented wild gorilla tool use, meaning every great ape species has been seen using tools.

Which explorer was the first Westerner to see a live gorilla, on travels between 1856 and 1859?

He brought dead specimens to Britain in 1861 along with lurid tales of hunting enormous gorillas.

Who conducted the first systematic field study of mountain gorillas in 1959?

Akeley had gone to Africa in the 1920s to shoot and stuff one; Schaller went to watch them live.

Which primatologist studied Rwanda's mountain gorillas from 1966 until her murder in 1985?

She was one of Louis Leakey's 'Trimates', alongside Goodall (chimpanzees) and Galdikas (orangutans).

What was the name of the Karisoke researcher's favourite gorilla, killed by poachers in 1977?

She was later buried beside him in the gorilla graveyard at Karisoke.

Who played the lead role in the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist?

She won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for the role.

Koko, the gorilla taught a form of sign language, was born at which zoo?

Her real name was Hanabiko; Francine Patterson cross-fostered her for language experiments from 1971.

What was the name of the pet kitten that featured in the 1985 best-seller Koko's Kitten?

Koko signed 'cry' and 'sleep' after the kitten was hit by a car; she had earlier made a National Geographic cover taking her own photo in a mirror.

Colo, the first gorilla born in captivity, arrived in 1956 at which zoo?

Her name is short for Columbus, Ohio; she lived there her whole life and died in 2017 aged 60.

Snowflake, the world's only known white gorilla, lived at which zoo from 1966 to 2003?

He was captured in Spanish Guinea by a Fang farmer who had killed the rest of his group; his Fang name meant 'white gorilla'.

Harambe was shot in 2016 after a three-year-old boy climbed into his enclosure at which zoo?

He was named after Rita Marley's 1988 song 'Harambe (Working Together for Freedom)' by a contest winner at his birth zoo in Texas.

In 2019, roughly how many mountain gorillas were estimated to exist?

That was a genuine recovery from about 880 a few years earlier; no mountain gorillas were held in zoos.

Roughly how many western gorillas are thought to survive in the wild?

Eastern gorillas number only around 5,000; both species are Critically Endangered.

Which virus wiped out several hundred gorillas in Odzala National Park, Republic of Congo, in 2004?

A 2006 Science study estimated more than 5,000 gorillas died in outbreaks across central Africa.

The first gorilla genome was sequenced from DNA of a female gorilla named what?

The gorilla was the next-to-last great ape genus to be sequenced.

In which year did the Gorilla Agreement, the first binding gorilla-conservation treaty, take effect?

It sits under the UN's Convention on Migratory Species.

Which 19th-century sculpture inspired the movie trope of gorillas kidnapping women, seen in King Kong?

The 1930 film Ingagi used the same idea three years before Kong.

The DC Comics supervillain Gorilla Grodd is an enemy of which superhero?

Gorillas are also the antagonists in the 1968 Planet of the Apes and the villain in Donkey Kong.

Among the Fang people, the gorilla word 'ngi' shares its root with the word for what?

The root denotes a positive energy; stories of people reincarnated as gorillas are still told from the CAR to Gabon.

Which mystery writer accompanied Carl Akeley to Africa in the 1920s and wrote On the Gorilla Trail?

Her young daughter Alice on that trip grew up to write science fiction as James Tiptree Jr.

Per an 1861 explorer's report, a Cameroonian belief held that a pregnant woman who sees a gorilla will do what?

The Baka, by contrast, have words for at least ten types of gorilla by sex, age and relationship.