Class- Mammilia

Order- Primata

Family- Pongidae

Genus- Gorilla

Species- Gorilla

Male- Silverback

Mountain Gorillas are amazing animals. They live in the mountains of Zaire , Rwanda , and Uganda . These countries are in central and western Africa . The weather there is unlike the weather in America . It is very tropical and rainy except for two seasons. Those two seasons are December to January and June to August.

The Mountain Gorilla is a vegetarian. They eat fruits, plants, leaves, branches, and bark. One thing is that they definitely don’t eat meat. It is very easy for Mountain Gorillas to find their food since they live in rainforests.

Mountain Gorillas are endangered. There are only about 600 left in the wild. They got endangered because many people killed them for their skins and meat. To help gorillas you can donate to many gorilla foundations. It would really help the gorillas.

Gorillas live in packs. Each pack has about 20-30 gorillas. The leader of the pack is usually a male called the silverback. The silverback protects all of the females and babies. The groups always stick together.

Gorillas grow very big. They grow up to six feet tall. They can weigh up to 300 to 450 pounds. The adult silverback is twice as large as a female. Mountain Gorillas are humungous.

Mountain Gorillas grow very fast. They develop twice as fast a human. When the babies are born, they are very small. They are only 4 pounds. The big gorillas have to watch over the babies at all times. The babies leave their packs around age fifteen. Although many babies don’t live to that age because when they are one year old they die from diseases. The female gorillas mature around six, but they still grow after that time. The male gorillas mature at ten and still grow afterwards. When the males mature they get a thin strip of gray along their backs.

Gorillas have many threats in their life. Since they have many threats almost half of all gorillas die before adulthood. Some of their threats are poachers, human diseases, and wars. A gorilla’s biggest threat is habitat loss. Gorillas in the wild are only lucky to live past thirty five years old. In captivity they live up to fifty three years of age. Mountain Gorillas live much longer in captivity then in the wild. The only problem is that no Mountain Gorillas are in captivity.

People think that gorillas are mean, vicious creatures, but they only attack when threatened or disturbed. It is unfair that the humans blame the attacks on the gorillas when it really is the humans fault. If people never threatened Mountain Gorillas there would never be attacks.

Mountain Gorillas have many interesting facts about them. They are the rarest Gorilla of them all. Mountain Gorillas are also the last living members of the ape family and the largest living primate. Mountain Gorillas are really close to the human species. They are actually the closest species to human kind. They have 98% of our genome. Mountain Gorillas are amazing creatures.

Mountain Gorillas are amazing. They are very close to humans. They also know how to live in the wild. Mountain Gorillas are one of the most amazing creatures in the world.