A full-grown gorilla can be 6 feet high and weigh 500 pounds. An animal this large with a heavy, black fur coat certainly looks threatening, but if you’re kind to one and it gets to know you, it can be as gentle as a Shetland pony. People studying the habits of gorillas have spent many pleasant days with them in their African forest homeland.
Actually, wild gorillas are rarely seen as they are shy and disappear quickly when approached. As many as 6 family groups (a group being a male, two or three females and young ones) often live together, sharing feeding grounds. A male gorilla is much more powerful than a human, with its massive bones, broad shoulders and long arms. Its open, vicious-looking mouth reveals strong jaws and tusk-like teeth, surrounded by a wrinkled, oily-black face with a large flat nose and furry ears. Underneath it all is a rounded “potbelly” stomach.
A frightening habit is when a large male lets out an ear-splitting scream while thumping his hairy chest. When several more join in, it is easy to understand why a listener would consider them fierce animals. But all this noise seems to be just that -harmless noise - merely “letting off steam.”
Such big animals need lots of food, and most of the day is spent eating bamboo shoots, tree buds, vines, ferns, thistles and the wild celery which they particularly like. They are not meat eaters.
Females give birth to just one tiny baby, weighing from 3 to 5 pounds. It is helpless and remains with its mother for about 3 years. At first the mother carries the baby by holding it gently to her chest. When the baby is about 3 months old it is strong enough to ride on her back and has fun sliding down her sides. Groups of little ones play together, climbing and swinging on trees or sliding down tree trunks. They often play while the parents take daytime naps. Each night the adults make new nests on the ground or in the lower branches of a tree, pulling grass and tender branches together, something like a huge bird’s nest. But they only use them once and make a new one each night.
While gorillas and other apes look something like men, they are not related. The first chapter of Genesis makes it very plain that man was a separate creation, distinct from beasts, fish and birds. This is confirmed again in the New Testament, which tells us plainly, “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds” (1 Corinthians 15:3939All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. (1 Corinthians 15:39)). There are those who try to teach otherwise, but the Word of God is always true.
SEPTEMBER 13, 1998
ML-09/13/1998