Do Gorillas Live in Africa?

Do Gorillas Live in Africa?

Do gorillas live in Africa? Gorillas are apes, and they are one of the largest in the group of primates. They are giant apes and relatively share 98% of human DNA.

Many people have questions regarding ‘where the gorillas live.’ Gorillas live in Africa and are natives who are distributed into two parts. It’s approximately 900 km separating the gorillas between the western gorillas and the eastern gorillas.

There were only two, which were formally sprinted at some point, likely during the Stone Age. There was a climatic change that caused the rainforest to shrink into few areas.

The savanna was spread between two refuge areas, which was not an appropriate habitat for the gorillas.

Later on, the rainforest was spread again over all the African tropics, whereby the gorillas could only advance to the Ubangi and the Congo River.

Ever since, the western and the eastern gorillas separated apart. The difference between both of them is their external characters and their genetic materials.

Habitats where these wild apes are protected have been encroached upon and fragmented since the forested areas are reduced by cultivation.

This caused the borders of these apes to be distributed in areas that have changed little over the last decades.

In some regions the apes have disappeared because the habitats/forests have been destroyed; thus, gorillas living in Africa are found in different parts.

The eastern lowland gorillas live in the eastern African countries, including Rwanda and Uganda, while the western lowland gorillas are found in the western African countries, including Gabon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon.

The mountain gorillas live in the mountainous areas in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. According to the research record, there are only 880 mountain gorillas left in the wild, of which most are lowland gorillas.

There are 25000 eastern lowland gorillas in total in the wild.

Human activities have led to the decrease of gorillas every year, including poaching, deforestation, cultivation and human settlement. One is encouraged to save the gorillas because they are few in the wild.