The fully grown adult male mountain gorilla is twice as large as the female. Adult males grow a crown of muscle and hair that makes the head look even longer. Gorillas have large heads - especially males, who's sculls have a prominent crest. The mountain gorilla has a robust build with long, muscular arms and short legs, a massive chest, and broad hands and feet with thick digits. They also have shorter arms than their western gorilla relatives. The separate subspecies of gorilla differ slightly in appearance:Įastern gorillas tend to be darker in color, with longer hair, jaws and teeth. Standing upright, males can sometimes measure up to six feet tall. The gorilla is enormous! Mature males average around 400 pounds in the wild and the females around 200 pounds. Today, about 320 inhabit the Virunga Mountains and another 300 in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda, but their long-term survival continues to be threatened by natural changes and disasters, hunters and poachers and the chronic political instability. Hunting and poaching reduced their numbers to about 250 by 1981, when the protection efforts of the late Dian Fossey and others brought the decline to a halt. Only about 600 mountain gorillas are left in the wild. The mountain gorillas are the rarest of all and are on the brink of extinction. Today only about 2,500 remain in the wild, and only a few dozen can be spotted in the world's zoos. In the 1960's an estimated 5,000-15,000 lived in the eastern Congolese rainforest. The eastern lowland gorilla population, on the other hand, has dramatically declined in recent years. This gorilla is also the type most often seen in zoos. Currently, there are about 50,000 western lowland gorillas living in West Central Africa. ©Shem Compion PopulationThe gorilla population is fairly small and still on the decline. The gorillas are located most often in the Hagenia forests, in the bamboo forests (depending on the season), and now and then in the subalpine vegetation zone. The gorillas also seem to avoid open meadow areas - they will rather go around a meadow than cross it. Apparently, the gorillas never climb above about 3,965 m (13,000 ft) and are rarely seen in the low area between the two groups of dormant volcanoes. Most of the gorillas reside on the slopes of the three dormant volcanoes in the upper region(Karisimbi, Mikeno, and Visoke),while the rest inhabit the other three dormant volcanoes in the lower region (Sabinyo, Mgahinga, and Muhavura). ![]() Only about 660 of these individuals remain. These magnificent mountains and the nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda are the last safe havens of the most endangered of the gorilla subspecies, the mountain gorilla. The Virunga Volcanoes, a chain of eight volcanoes runs through a western section of the Great Rift Valley, forming part of the border between Uganda, Congo and Rwanda. It is being debated that the Bwindi Gorilla is a proposed third separate species of Gorilla. The Eastern Gorilla comprises of the Mountain Gorilla and the Eastern Lowland Gorilla. The Western Gorilla comprises of the Western Lowland Gorilla and the Cross River Gorilla. IntroductionGorillas are divided into 2 recognised species and 4 sub species.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |