Gorillas generally live is a group consisting of 6-8 members although the group can go to up to 35 members, normally the group is lead by a dominant male called a silverback when usually at the age of 13 years and above, the leader male is responsible for all the activities taking place in the group including fertilizing the females, deciding where to build the nest for the following night, where to feed from and even protecting the group from any attack together with other family members, if it means losing life a silverback can do it in order to defend the group. Other members include females with their young.
Most of the time a baby gorillas is born when weighing up to 3-4 pounds(1.4-1.8kg) which is about half the weight of a new born human baby. Although it develops twice as fast. A baby gorilla can walk after 40 weeks, and it can slowly become independent when its 3 years. By the age of 6 years a gorilla can be weighing about 70kgs at this age a female gorilla matures although a male gorilla only matures when they reach 10 years of age. A male gorillas leaves the parental group when his black back hair turns grey they wonder alone or join another males for some time before attracting females who will join them, if they get new members they form their own family.
A female gorilla conceives when at 9-10 years and the gestation period is lasts between 8-10 months, they most of the time produce a single offspring, twins in gorillas is a rare case. Female gorillas give birth to a baby once every 4 years and over 30% of babies don’t survive their first year due to accidents and diseases, and also in case the father dies and another silverback takes over. This new silverback kills all the babies of his predecessors in order to secure his genes.
ORDER OF HIERARCHY IN GORILLAS
The dominant silverback enjoys the highest rank as it takes control of the group in case their different dominant males in the group they stage a war until a strong one emerge. A silverback hair normally comes when a male reach about 12 years old. The adult female follows and rule over the younger ones. Gorilla males achieve the ranking because of their size like in other species of the animal world. Male mountain gorilla can weigh up to 200kg and can reach 1.70 meters when their standing upright.
HOW A DAY IS SPENT IN A LIFE OF GORILLAS
Gorillas’ starts their day at around 6am, they wake up and begin looking for food and this normally covers a great part of the morning. Not like many other primates gorillas spend about 30% feeding and about 30% travelling and 40% resting. Gorillas live mainly on ground they travel not more than a kilometer per day within their territory.
Gorillas are known as vegetarians their diet consist of roots, leaves, stems and pith of herbs, vine and shrubs, gorillas also occasionally eat ants and other insects. A male adult gorilla can consume up to 20kgs a day. Gorillas rarely drink water this is because most of the food they eat contains large quanties of water.
The afternoon is spent with resting and playing and this is very important in life of gorillas especially the young ones, as they socialize with each other, learn how to behave in the society and it determines their integrity on to the group. And the evening in the life of great apes starts by constructing nest where they will sleep that night. As with gorillas they don’t sleep in the same place for more than one day. Every single gorilla has its own nest except the infants who sleep net to their mothers; they are built either on ground or on trees and their carefully built