Gorilla gorilla gorilla, otherwise known as the Western lowland gorilla, has not been as well studied as its ethnic relative, the eastern mountain gorilla. This paper will examine the lowland gorilla in detail, with attention to the following topics: evolution and phylogeny; range (extent, climate, and vegetation) habitat and niche, including metabolic features; physiological adoptions for survival; status of endangerment; and anatomical adoptions for survival, including population trends. In addition, three figures, mentioned in the text, will help illustrate several of the above topics.
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 and hair is jet black, whereas in the Western lowland gorilla the hair is more grayish or brownish, and the male's saddle of whitish hair extends onto the thighs and grades more into the body color.
Evolution (genetic change in a population through time) and phylogeny (the evolutionary branching sequence) both point to the fact that gorillas and man share a common ancestor. In his "Pygmy Chimpanzee as a Possible Prototype for the Common Ancestor of Humans,...