Gorilla

Gorilla (Anthropopitltecus gorilla), the largest of the Anthropoid apes, of the same genus as the Chimpanzee (q.v.). It is a native of Western Equatorial Africa, and, though mentioned by Hanno the Carthaginian (B.C. 470), only became known to science in 1847, when a skull was sent to Boston by an American missionary on the Gaboon river. Some years later Du Chaillu visited Western Africa (1855-59), and from him the first trustworthy accounts of the animal were obtained. Gorillas go about in families, and, though good climbers, live principally on the ground and travel on all fours, rarely assuming an erect posture. They subsist chiefly on fruit, occasionally taking eggs, birds, and probably small mammals. An adult male when erect is about 5 ft. 6 in. high, the skin is black and covered with long hair, very thick on the back, and varying in colour from dusky red to dull black, The skull is figured under Anthropoid Apes (q.v.), and should be compared, especially as to the development of the canines and its bony crests, with that of man (Fig. 1). The brain is of a low type and much less convoluted than that of the orang or the chimpanzee. The ferocity of the gorilla has probably been exaggerated, but ite great strength renders it, if attacked, a formidable antagonist.