Gorillaz

GORILLAS

                                                         

                               

So here is a little bit of info about gorillas:

But first it's oh so cold here in Pittsburgh...

Gorillas

The Gorilla is the largest of the great apes. It may look mean, but it's really very gentle and sweet. They are only aggressive when they need to protect themselves or their pack. Gorillas in the wild actually avoid confrontation. 

• They can Live up to 55 years
• Largest brain of the great apes
• Each gorilla's face is different than the other
• Arms are longer than legs

Troops

In the wild Gorillas live in troops. The leader of the group is the largest and strongest silver-back male gorillas. He is the groups protector and he decides where to look for food and where to sleep at night. 

The average group size is 11 gorillas. 

Their range is about 15 miles. 

Spend most of the time on the ground - but are very good climbers. 

Communication

Gorillas communicate with many signals:

• Low belching noise means contentment. it is often made when feeding. 
• Pig grunt noise is used in disciplinary situations, such as when a silver-back orders a group or a mother scolds her young
• Hoot bark noise means curiosity or alarm. A silver-back attracts the attention of his group with a hoot bark. .
• Chest and thigh beating may show aggression or play. 

                                                        

Food

Because of the Gorilla's size it needs to eat a large amount of food everyday. This means gorillas need to travel a lot in a day in order to find enough food. Gorillas eat nearly 30 pounds of food everyday! The food is also not very nutritious - so they have to eat a lot of it in order to get the nutrition they need. They also eat such water filled fruits that they don't drink out of pools or streams. 

Their food includes: tough stringy plants, bark, vines, bamboo, nuts, berries, fruit, and bracket fungus

They are also very fussy eaters. they throw away what they don't want after examining it throughly.  They have 32 teeth (like humans) though, so with the help of their lips they are able to bite and pick their way through most things. 

FEMALES!

First...

here is my pal from the zoo

Famales are not as tall as males. They also weight half as much - so around 300 pounds. Females Mature at 10-12 years. They are very close with their young and are protected my the male gorillas. 

Interesting article:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1227_051227_gorilla.html

Here is video of my lovely girl...

Gorillas are a lot like us...

Gorillas are closely related to humans and are considered highly intelligent.

The DNA in gorillas is 98-99% the same as humans.

Human genes differ only 1.6% on average from their corresponding gorilla genes in their sequence, but there is further difference in how many copies of each gene.