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Gorilla gorilla female skull and brain
Skull and brain of a female Western Lowlands Gorilla (brain )
Gorillas are ground-dwelling, mainly herbivorous hominoid apes that live in Central Africa. The genus Gorilla is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla (Gorilla berengei) and the western gorilla (G. gorilla), with four subspecies. The range of the two species is separated by the Congo River and its tributaries. Speciation may have occured from a single type of gorilla during dry periods of the Pleistocene (contemporary with glaciation periods), when their forest habitats shrank and became isolated from each other.
The name Gorillai
in ancient Greek meant "tribe of hairy women." This is derived from the
expidition of Hanno the Navigator, who in ca. 500 BC visited Sierra
Leone and encountered "hairy women ... whom our interpreters called
Gorillae."
Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) live in dense forests and lowland swamps and marshes as low as sea level. Their diet consists mainly of fruit, although they also eat a variety of other food including termites.
Gorillas,
the largest living primates, have DNA from 95 to 98% similar
to that of both chimpanzees and humans. Gorilla facial structure is
highly prognathic, with the mandible (lower jaw) protruding farther out
than the maxilla (upper jaw). There is significant sexual dimorphism.
Adult males have a prominent sagittal crest, and both males and females
have a bunlike bone projection in the rear of the skull, for muscle
attachments.
References:
Groves, C. 2002 . A history of gorilla taxonomy. In A.B.Taylor & M.L.. Goldsmith (eds.). Gorilla Biology: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Cambridge University Press. pp. 15–34.
Hair, P. E. H. 1987. The Periplus of Hanno in the History and Historiography of Black Africa. History in Africa. 14: 43–66.
Montagu, M. F. Ashley 1940. Knowledge of the Ape in Antiquity. Isis. 32 (1): 87–102.:
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