STRENGTH OF A GORILLA
Strength of A Gorilla : Gorilla trekking in Africa has gained popularity over the years because of the rewarding experiences it offers to tourists that participate in the activity and spend one hour observing their interesting features in the wild. Gorilla trekking in Africa will give you different options of what species to observe this is because the continent is home to different gorilla types like the mountain gorillas that can be found when you hike the Virunga mountains in Mgahinga national park, Virunga national park, volcanoes national park and when you visit Bwindi impenetrable national park, the lowland gorillas can be found in kahuzi biega national parks and the western lowland gorillas in Gabon among other countries.
Gorillas have a number of exciting behaviors in the wild like; how they co-exist with one another for instance the dominant male/ silverback of the gorilla family has all the mating rights with all the adult females of the group which causes strains and arguments among the adult females who try hard to get the attention of the silverback by flirting with the male in order to get his attention and mate with and many other interesting behaviour of the gentle giants. One of the most fascinating thing about the gorillas is their strength and body mass which has raised a number of questions like how strong a gorilla is, gorilla strength vs chimpanzees and also the strength of a gorilla compared to man all of these that can be answered by your tour guide when you participate in gorilla trekking in Africa to understand more about the endangered gorilla species min the world.
The gorillas are such well- built primate species with broad shoulders and long arms as compared to their legs that if they stand on their two feet can stand at 6 feet and above making them quite tall species compared to other primate species like the different monkeys, chimpanzees orang-utans and many other primates. The gorilla mass is as a result of their diet that comprises of edible leaves like celery, bamboo shoots which takes the biggest percentage as the source of food, where fruit is readily available, you can see gorillas opting for fruit, small invertebrates like the caterpillars, termites, centipedes, the gorillas can eat up to 18 kilograms of food daily which has contributed to the strength of the gorilla. Compared to the chimpanzees, the gorillas are quite strong with an average weight of a fully grown gorilla male is 136-227 and female is 68-113 kilograms whereas chimpanzees, the average female can weigh up to 27-50 kilograms and an adult male 40- 70 kilograms making them quite heavy compared to the chimpanzees. It should be noted that the chimpanzee muscles consist of fast twitch fibres which are quite strong but use a lot of energy making the chimpanzees fatigued much faster than the gorillas.
With this, it should be noted that the gorillas are 4 to 6 times stronger than the chimpanzees however there are some instances where a number of infants(young gorillas) have been killed by chimpanzees in case of fights that break out due to territorial encroachment, a number of records have also shown that a silver back in Gabon, was killed by 23 chimpanzees this is because of the fact that they were outnumbered but in case of a one on one battle, the gorilla surely beats the chimpanzees and this can be fatal s compared to the chimpanzees which is quite aggressive when it comes to tearing its opponent, the gorilla on the other hand can lift up to 1180kgs making it quite strong and a dangerous primate to challenge to a fight.
