Gorilla
Gorrila gorilla
Behavior
Gorillas are shy, peaceful, and amiable usually. This helps them stay away from humans, which would probably lead them to their ultimate destruction. When they feel threatened, these gorillas stand upright, pound their chests, roar, and could possibly start fake charging and ripping vegetation off the ground. This helps scare predators away by a mile more than their appearence. Gorillas travel in small packs. This helps them have strength in numbers to survive. The dominant male will sometimes make a hooting sound to bring all the gorillas in the pack near. This helps them survive so that no one gorilla gets lost from a group, and it helps them travel a lot quicker. It is not rare for a new dominant male to kill the infant heirs of the old dominant male. This helps the gorilla have a higher chance of producing offspring with the females in the group, because killing the infants resets the reproductive cycle.
Gorilla Groups
Gorilla Face
This shows the face of a gorilla.
Gorilla Distribution
Area
All types of gorilla live in the tropics and subtropics of Equatorial Africa. Mountain gorillas live in higher altitudes than 5,000m above sea level, which is not the case for Western and Eastern gorillas, which live in the lowlands below 5,000m above sea level. Western gorillas inhabit the western lowlands, unlike the Eastern gorillas, which inhabit the lowlands next to the mountains where the mountain gorillas live. The countries all of the gorillas combined live in are the regions of the African Republic, Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Congo, Angola, and may be found in the Democratic Congo.
A Few Facts
Western gorillas are big and hulky apes. They have powerful muscles and have a night black skin color, and an exceptionally dark gray and coarse hair coating. This coating covers their entire bodies except on their feet, hands, face, and ears. It helps keep them heated at the right temperatures and provides some defense when attacked. It also helps them be concealed in the night. They have big noses with tiny eyes and ears. They help the gorilla sense the surroundings around them. The hair on the back tends to go gray with age in older males, letting them be known as "silverbacks". The Gorilla gorilla species has 3 subspecies: The Gorilla gorilla beringei, or the mountain gorilla, the Gorilla gorilla graueri, or the eastern lowland gorilla, and the Gorilla gorilla gorilla, or the western lowland gorilla. They all live in completely seperate areas, with no gorillas in the areas in between.
Munchies (Diet)
All free gorillas are herbivores, munching on nutritious stemmed plants as their main diet. But they will also consume leaves, berries, ferns, and bark every so often. Western gorillas climb trees sometimes for food. They usually never rid the tropic/subtropic forest they call home of its vegetation, since it rapidly regrows and prospers everywhere. This means gorillas are making use of the lush green, allowing them to stay in the same area for long periods of time. Gorillas almost never hunt any animals, making them one of the selected exceptions that is not omnivore.
Height, Length, and Weight
Each gorilla generally has a big nose and small ears. They stand at around 5 foot 8 and when they stand upward they can pass 6 foot 0. This helps them look fearsome, which keeps predators away. The male is bigger than the female. They get their mature fur coloring only a few days after birth. Their pre-mature coloring is a somewhat dark gray. Gorillas have around 300-400 lbs. when adults, which improves their fearsome look.
Classification
(Domain) Eukarya:
This domain includes all organisms with eukaryotic cells. The vast group of creatures contains the only multi-celled organisms on the planet.
(Kingdom) Animalia:
All animals are all metazoans (multicellular), which means that they are made with more than 1 cell. This also tells that they are not prokaryotes, which always has 1 cell. They are all dependant on getting their energy by eating other organisms so that they stay alive. Most animals digest those organisms.
(Phylum) Chordata:
All animals in the phylum chordata have a segmented body with segmented muscles. They also have a blood track with a heart, a full-on digestive system, bilateral symmetry, a nervous system, some form of endoskeleton, and pharygeal pouches are available at one stage or another.
(Subphylum)Vertebrata:
All animals in the subphylum vertebrata have coupled kidneys, two sexes, a more or less complete vertebral column, muscles stuck to the endoskeleton, more "complete" digestive system, a pharynx, a heart with 2 through 4 chambers, and a finely-developed coelom.
(Class) Mammalia:
All mammals have hair at some point, and this hair is very important. All hair from mammals give at least 4 things: insulation, sensing, color/pattern, and for a defense mechanism.
(Order) Primates:
All primates have distinguishable hand and feet, each foot having 5 fingers or toes. Primates also enjoy having fingernails, hair everywhere on their bodies, high intelligence, being omnivores (there are a very selected few exceptions), and very frequently a tail for stability.
(Family) Hominidae:
There are only 4 species in the Hominidae family: humans, (common) chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. Before this group used to just be humans, but then gorillas were linked to humans and changed families. This family has the smartest species (plural) in the entire world. This means that each species has a large braincase. Every species in this family also has very complex social behavior.
(Genus) Gorilla:
The Gorilla genus is what this is reviewing!
(Species) gorilla:
Again, what we are reviewing.
Refrences
Noodletools References:
Burton, M. (2002). Gorilla. In International wildlife encyclopedia (3rd ed., Vol. 8, pp. 1023-1026). New York, NY: Marshall Cavendish.
Csosmos, R. (2008). Gorrila gorrila. Retrieved March 11, 2015, from Animal Diversity Web website: http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Gorilla_gorilla/
Picture References:
Face Picture: animals.sandiegozoo.org
Map Picture: gorillas344.blogspot.com
Group Picture: (couldn't find)
Plant Stem Picture: http://www.edenproject.com/visit-us/whats-here/plant-a-z/wild-banana
Jungle Picture: (blocked)
I-Pad Picture: www.thesun.co.uk