Essay On Mountain Gorilla

785 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gorilla research report

The members of the Order Primates, Family Hominidae are considered an endangered species. The Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) populations have been diminished to areas of the Virunga Mountains of Central Africa that are found in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park Uganda.

Description and Identification
Mountain Gorillas are one of the largest existing primates, second only two its cousin, the Eastern Lowland Gorilla. Males on average grow to weigh 430 pounds and 59 inches tall. Females on the other hand are much smaller compared to males and grow up on average to weigh 220 pounds and 51 inches tall. Mountain gorillas are known for having longer and thicker jet-black fur. Older males are known as silverbacks, because they have a short layer of silver hair on their backs that develops with increased age. Another physiological distinction between male and female mountain gorillas is that the males have larger conical shaped heads. The reason for this is that male mountain gorillas have bony crests on the top and back of their skulls. These gorillas can be distinguished by their nose prints. Each gorilla has a unique nose print and such as the fingerprint is unique for each human being.
Mountain Gorillas are known to walk on two arms and two legs. This is different than being a quadruped because they do not possess four feet since there is a physiological difference between their arms and legs: that being that their arms are longer. They do, however, possess the capability to run on their two legs for short distances.
Distribution and Abundance
The Gorilla beringei beringei species can be found in Central Africa and specifically be found in two areas: the Virunga Vol...

... middle of paper ...

... mountains. In the Bwindi population, the gorillas are known more for foraging for different fruits and because of this are known to climb trees more often than the members of the Virunga region.
Conservation and Management
There are some reasons that have contributed to why there are less than a 1000 mountain gorillas left in the world. Poaching, habitat loss, and disease play major roles in shaping the population size of the mountain gorillas. Poaching is where adult gorillas are maimed or killed by traps set to abduct infants for illegal selling to zoos and as pets. Increased armed patrolling in the Virunga and Bwindi regions combats this. Due to the lush vegetation in the Virunga and Bwindi regions, there is an increased interest for agriculture in the forest areas and this increased interest has led to habitat loss for the gorilla populations over the years.

Show More
Related

  • Sacramento Zoo Observation

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    I visited the Sacramento Zoo during the afternoon of April 21, 2017. The weather was wonderful, sunny, warm, and there was a slight breeze. It got a bit more breezy the longer I was there. Visiting the zoo to observe primates allowed me to become a little more aware of how primatologists study primates. Even though I’ve been to many different zoos several different times, I never realized how many primates were associated with the zoos, as well as the variety of primates in the zoos. The Sacramento Zoo has eight different primates, all in different classifications, superfamilies, or subfamilies. While observing the Chimpanzees, White-Handed Gibbon, Mongoose Lemur, White-Faced Saki, and the Wolf’s Guenon I could see the differences

    Read More

  • The Evolution Of Primate Locomotion And Body Configuration: An Analysis

    1872 Words  | 4 Pages

    For the lowland adult male gorilla measure up about 66.9 in. tall and weigh an average of 374 pounds, while adult female gorillas measure up about 59.1 in. height and her weigh is no more than 160 pounds. On the other hand, adult male mountain gorillas may weigh up to 484 pounds, and adult females weigh about 215 pounds. The adult male bonobos measure up to 4 feet tall and weigh an average of 85 pounds, while adult female bonobos measure up over 3 feet tall and weigh an average of 68 pounds. The adult male chimpanzees measure up to approximately 4 feet high, and weigh between 90 and 120 pounds, while the female chimpanzees weigh between 60 and 110 pounds. The adult male orangutan measure up to typically 4 ft. 6 in. tall and weigh around 165 pound, while the adult female orangutan measure up to 3 ft. 9 in. and weigh around 82 pounds. Male orangutans are approximately twice the size of the females. It is believed that the bigger size of males is because of the strong competition among males for females. The 12 species of gibbons are classified as lesser apes. They are relatively smaller, slender, and more agile than other apes. They exhibit many characteristics of primates, including flat faces, enlarged brain sizes, grasping hands and feet, arms longer than legs, no tails, and broad chests. Male gibbons are just under 3 ft. in length and weigh about 15 pounds. Furthermore, the evolution of Homo erectus showed more human examination

    Read More

  • Jen Viegas Seeker: Article Analysis

    261 Words  | 1 Pages

    Seeker states that 60% of all primates are threatened with extinction. The main idea is primates

    Read More

  • Thesis Statement About Primates

    360 Words  | 1 Pages

    Primates, any placental mammal of the order Primates, normally having flexible hands and feet and, in the higher apes, a highly developed brain (“Primate”, 2016), have been one of the most popular animals and prominent attractions in zoos.

    Read More

  • Non Human Primates Essay

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    Do non-human primates have communication, language, both, or neither? By definition, communication is the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information (Snowdon). Communication is very closely related to social behavior since they are both referring to the ways animals interact with each other (Quiatt and Reynolds 1993). Conversely, language is defined as a system of communication using sounds or gestures that are put together in meaningful ways according to a set of rules (Haviland et al. 2010). Non-human primates and human primates are similar in many ways, and communication is no exception. They both have various types of communication senses and styles. Human primate communication senses consist of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. Non-human primates mainly understand the world through sight, but smell, taste, and hearing are important as well (Quiatt and Reynolds 1993). Human primates are capable of speaking a language, while non-human primates use different vocal calls to communicate. In essence, the difference is simple, human primates have language while non-human primates do not. Even though non-human primates do not have language, they do have communication.

    Read More

  • Primate Culture

    1444 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... the gorillas are taken away from their family and are living in captivity. It is still important to study primates in-depth, and a solution to the ethical issues may be to breed primates within the conservatory.

    Read More

  • primates

    1707 Words  | 4 Pages

    Bonobos and gorillas are often found socializing in groups but orangutans are more solitary primates usually keeping to just the children they have (Absolutely Apes). Most scientists believe that bonobos are the most intelligent of the primates(Absolutely Apes). They share many of the behaviors us humans do day to day, like teaching...

    Read More

  • Bigfoot

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Teh-Ima is 4 feet tall, being the smallest of the four and is located in lower mountain regions. The Meh-The, slightly resembling a gorilla, has a big pointed head and large square teeth, it is slightly larger than the Teh-Ima. The Duz-Teh being the third largest resembles a bear and is approximately six to eight feet tall. The largest of the group is the Bigfoot of North America weighing as much as 1,000 pounds, and over eight feet tall (Gaffron, 44-46). These Bigfeet have there own characteristics and traits, each one ad...

    Read More

  • Chimpanzees: The Dangers Of Animals In The World

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many animals in the world. Even we don’t know the exact number of them. Recently, it’s difficult to find some species because they already threaten and most of them become extinct. We can’t find the great ape called chimpanzees easily in the Africa forest. The largest population of chimpanzees are in central Africa, mainly Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Cameroon. It’s about 150,000 to 250,000 individuals (WWF,n.d). Their population keeps decreasing rapidly each year. Although this problem already handled by big organization, government and others, but the chimpanzees life aren’t safe. It is caused by many reasons, the human activities are one of the big problem that made chimpanzee become in endangered. Such as deforestation

    Read More

  • Zoo Primate Observation

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    From a far distance I was able to see the largest of the primates, Gorillas. The gorillas at the

    Read More

  • The Significance of Ishmael

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...t only is a gorilla completely different from us, but it is also one of the smartest species. By hearing a different point of view of our society, it opens up people’s minds. Everything changes when an individual not living in our society tells us that we are wrong.

    Read More

  • Comparison Of Anthropoidea And New World Monkeys

    681 Words  | 2 Pages

    If you see a group of monkeys casually walking around in a grassland environment (like those shown on the right), you can be sure that they are from the Old World. Many of the larger New World monkeys have prehensile, or grasping, tails that are capable of being used as strong "third hands" for holding onto branches and supporting their bodies. None of the Old World monkeys or apes has this capability. Many species of Old World monkeys have ischial callosities , or hairless callous pads, on their rumps which may be adaptations for long periods of sitting or sleeping on rough branches and rocks.

    Read More

  • Gorilla Research Paper

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    The gorillas live mainly in coastal West Africa in the Congo, Zaire, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. Gorillas live in the rain forest. They usually live on the ground but build nest in trees to sleep in. Gorilla troops keep a 15-20 square mile range which often overlaps the range of other troops. There are three different kinds of gorillas. The eastern lowland gorilla the western lowland and the mountain gorilla. They are herbivores and eat only wild celery, roots, tree bark pulp, fruit, stems of many plants and bamboo shoots. They spend nearly half their day eating.

    Read More

  • Informative Essay On Cheetahs

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    For these reasons along with many more, I feel like the cheetah should be protected at all costs. There are many reasons why the cheetah is known as an amazing animal, and there are also many ways these animals can be protected. With enough people interested and willing to help, I hope that one day we will have the cheetah population back and better than

    Read More

  • Essay On Endangered Species

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    In our world today we have approximately 26,021 endangered species. Endangered species are organisms that may possible become extinct. The term 'endangered species' refers to all species that fits this description. However some conservation biologists and scientists normally use the term ‘endangered species’ to refer to species that are put on the IUCN(International Union for Conservation of Nature)Red List. Many factors can be looked at when considering the conservation status of a species. Factors such as human threats or environmental threats can cause a species to become endangered.

    Read More

More about Essay On Mountain Gorilla

Open Document