Western Lowland Gorilla

The Western lowland gorilla's scientific name is Gorilla. It belongs to the family Pongidae, and its common name is gorilla. G. g. gorilla is a subspecies of the single species G. gorilla. The Western lowland gorilla is found in extreme southeastern Nigeria, southern Cameroon, extreme southwestern Central African Republic, mainland Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, and the extreme western tip of Zaire, along with the Cabinda enclave of Angola, at the mouth of the Congo River. An isolated population of this subspecies may also have existed in the Bondo district of north-central Zaire. There is a subspecies called the Eastern lowland gorilla (G. g. graueri) which is separated by about 1,000 kilometers from the Western lowland gorilla.

Hair color is the only genetic distinction between the two subspecies of lowland gorilla. In the Eastern lowland gorilla the coloration of the skin

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, the Western lowland gorilla inhabits parts of the great forest block between Cameroon and the Congo (Zaire) River. Like chimpanzees--and ourselves--gorillas have simple stomachs, unable to neutralize plant poisons or otherwise deal with tough leaves. Thus, over much of the species' range, gorillas eat ripe fruit, rich in energy but poor in nutrients such as protein and trace elements. And like chimpanzees, they make up these dietary inadequacies with supplements--insects, buds, flowers, fungus, and bark. The Western lowland gorilla, like all gorillas, is adept at handling problematic foods such as nettles with ease. Not all of the tropical rain forest vegetation--like the nettle--is easy to handle, but the gorilla's intelligence allows it to follow a complex sequence of actions to remove or neutralize all of the nettle's defenses. The animal also manages its way around thistles, wild celery, and bedstraw, all of which have either hard outer skins or tiny, sticky hooks. Gorillas are entirely vegetarian in their natural habitat. Their diet varies greatly from place to place, the differences being as much "cultural" as anything else. Some plants--lemonwood, pepper plant, bamboo and the stinging nettle Urera--are eaten wh
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