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A study published in the journal PLOS ONE suggests that gorillas could offer insights into future drug discoveries through their self-medicating behaviour.
About |
●They are the largest of the great apes. ●Five species of great apes are gorilla, orangutan, chimpanzee, bonobo, and human. ●They share 98.3% of their genetic code with humans, making them our closest cousins after chimpanzees and bonobos.
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Species |
●Gorillas have two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla. ●The mountain gorillas are subspecies of the eastern gorilla. |
Scientific Name |
Gorilla gorilla and Gorilla beringei |
Diet |
●Vegetarian( Frugivorous) |
Distribution |
●Gorillas are only found in tropical forests of the equatorial region in Africa. ●Eastern gorillas are found only in three countries- The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda, and Rwanda. ●Western gorillas are found in many countries including Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Angola, and the DRC. |
Features: |
●They are stocky animals with broad chests and shoulders, large, human-like hands, and small eyes set into hairless faces. ●Males are about twice as heavy as females. |
Locomotion |
●They walk about on all four limbs with part of their weight supported on the knuckles of their hands. ●This mode of locomotion is called knuckle-walking, and it is shared with chimpanzees. |
Social Behaviour |
●Gorillas are gentle giants and display many human-like behaviours and emotions, such as laughter and sadness. ●Gorillas live in family groups of usually five to 10, but sometimes two to more than 50, led by a dominant adult male—or silverback—who holds his position for years. ●Note: Males acquire silver-grey saddles across their backs and upper thighs at sexual maturity due to which they are named silverback. ●The groups are polygamous. ●The bond between the silverback and his females forms the basis of gorilla social life. ●They are diurnal i.e. active during the day and primarily terrestrial. |
Reproduction |
●Females become sexually mature around seven or eight years old but don’t begin to breed until a couple of years later. ●Males mature at an even greater age. ●Once a female begins to breed, she'll likely give birth to only one baby every four to six years and only three or four over her entire lifetime. ●This low rate of reproduction makes it difficult for gorillas to recover from population declines. |
Conservation Status |
●Due to an increase in its population in recent years, IUCN changed its conservation status from Critically Endangered to Endangered in November 2018. |
Sources:
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/gorilla
PRACTICE QUESTIONQ.Consider the following statements regarding the Gorillas:
How many of the above statements is/are correct? A. Only one B. Only two C. All Three D. None Answer: A Explanation: Statement 1 is incorrect: ●Gorillas are only found in tropical forests of the equatorial region in Africa. ●Eastern gorillas are found only in three countries- Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda, and Rwanda. ●Western gorillas are found in many countries including Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Angola, and the DRC. Statement 2 is correct: ●They are the largest of the great apes. ●Five species of great apes are gorilla, orangutan, chimpanzee, bonobo, and human. ●They share 98.3% of their genetic code with humans, making them our closest cousins after chimpanzees and bonobos. Statement 3 is incorrect: They are frugivorous in nature. |
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