I have always been very drawn to the gorgeous Gorilla, they are amazing animals which have many similar characteristics to man. Gorillas are large, tender, retiring apes that have their habitat in the continent of Africa. Gorillas have been made to appear like nasty animals by the film industry prior to now but are in actuality quiet, shy, peaceful vegetarians. These highly clever animals are in danger of extinction because of the huge amount of deforestation of their habitats.

Gorillas that for whatever reason have been placed in captivity have displayed a great amount of intelligence learning sign language from people and have been seen to form simple sentences and communicate with people. Only Gorillas in captivity that have been taught have displayed any skill with tools this doesn’t mean to say they haven’t used them in the wild just that they as yet haven’t been observed.

As I mentioned before Gorillas are mostly gentle animals but they communicate with each other using several complicated noises and gestures this is normally to show the young the many skills needed to survive and to talk to different gorillas about social relationships, food, warning etc. Gorillas are mostly herbivores, though occasionally they will consume termites and ants. The drink they get from the plants they consume is sufficient to rarely need a drink of water, which isn’t that surprising if you consider that a normal male gorilla consumes about 50 pounds of food each day.

The work to make sure that the gorillas areas they live is not completely ruined has been carried out by people over the years and now because of the many Gorilla Safaris that now draw money into the areas, specifically to see the gorgeous gorilla, the requirement for safety for these magnificent animals is a lot more central. Many of these companies provide businesses to go Mountain Gorilla Safaris in the several parks in the area, but this is on a permit basis to make sure the gorillas aren’t disturbed too frequently. The protected areas the gorillas live in has allowed these safari businesses to also provide Wildlife Safaris which ensures that awareness and funding keeps flowing into the areas.

At earlier stages of their development Gorillas would have lived in the trees but they have evolved into surviving on the forest floor mostly living at the forests boundary and close to clearings inside the rainforests. The life span of a wild gorilla is around 35 years, but gorillas that are put into captivity have been known to survive till around 50.

By around 10 or 12 years of age gorillas are capable of mating, the pregnancy lasts around 8 to 9.5 months for the female gorilla and she will have around 3 babies in their lifetime. The newly born baby is on average half the weight of a human child. Watching a Gorilla mother bringing up her offspring is just like that of a human mother with great care and love. Young gorillas once weaned build there own beds close to there mothers and will eventually leave there side at about 3 to 4 years old.

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