What Are Mountain Gorillas?

If you really want to know what a mountain gorilla is?  Am here to answer your question, the mountain gorilla is endangered great apes or hominids are taxonomic families of primates with the scientific name “beringei beringei” Species name: G. beringei

Subspecies: G.b beringei

Fall under the kingdom anima lea, Family Hominidae is also listed as endangered. These great apes are one of the two subspecies of the eastern gorillas.

Typically they are the largest living primates with a life span stretching from 30 to 50 years of survival on earth and they are closely related to humans with whom they share 99.9% of human DNA making them our closest living relative. Mountain gorillas are now recognized as distinct species in their own right.

Mountain Gorillas

Mountain gorillas are under a secondary consumer bracket their direct predators are the leopards there next immediate threat would be humans and for no reason known to us these great apes are surprisingly scared of water and rain, they wouldn’t dare cross a river stream unless there is a log of wood. Mountain gorillas are also afraid of chameleons and caterpillars, they are technically omnivores they diet on fresh green leaves, stems, and bamboo shoots as their favorite food and are in the third level of the food chain still food these apes also hunt for larvae, snails and ants. an adult male mountain gorilla may weigh up to 220kg and an adult female weighs up to 97.7kg.

These mountain gorillas are about the same height 4-6 feet tall with their bodies covered in thick black fur. Unlike human’s gestation period of 9 months gorillas have a gestation period of 8.5 months, its though very hard to tell when a female mountain gorilla is pregnant because there stomach is always large however some usually have temporarily swollen knuckles during pregnancy, a female mountain gorilla starts conceiving at the age of 10 years and it gives one baby every after 4 years mother gorillas stays with their babies until four years.

Gorillas in Africa

They live in families/ groups called troops. The reason they are called mountain gorillas is that they live in forests high in the mountain at higher elevations of 8,000 to 13,000 feet hence called “mountain Gorillas”