Gorilla

Height
The gorilla's average standing height is between five and six feet.

Weight
Males weigh between 300 and 400 pounds, and females weigh around 200 pounds.

Food
Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, eating the leaves and stems of herbs, shrubs, and vines. In some areas, they raid farms, eating and trampling crops. They will also eat rotten wood and small animals. Depending on the area that they live in, gorillas also eat fruit.

Life Span
Gorillas may live about 35 years in the wild, and have lived up to 54 years in zoos.

Reproduction
A female gives birth to one young, which can usually walk within three to six months. Young are usually weaned by three years old, and females can give birth every four years.

Colors
Gorilla's coats are brown-gray to black.

Habitat
Gorillas live in moist tropical forests, often in secondary, or re-growing, forests or along forest edges in central Africa, where clearings provide an abundance of low, edible vegetation. Mountain gorillas reside in the cloud forests of the Virunga Mountain Range in Africa.

Interesting Facts
Human birth control pills work on gorillas.

Because gorillas and humans are so closely related, most diseases can be transmitted from humans to gorillas and vice versa. This is the reason for the glass enclosures at the National Zoo's Great Ape House. The glass prevents any exchange of disease between visitors and gorillas.

Like all great apes, gorillas' arms are longer than their legs. They are quadrupeds supporting their forequarter weight on the third and fourth knuckles of their curled hands.

Each individual has distinctive fingerprints.

Poachers have destroyed entire family groups in their attempts to capture infant gorillas for zoos, while others are killed to sell their heads and hands as trophies.

Sub Species
Three subspecies are recognized: the western lowland gorilla, the eastern lowland gorilla, and the more densely coated mountain gorilla.