How Gorillas Feed

What do gorillas eat?

How gorillas feed , What they eat depends on what their habitat provides in a specific period of time during the year. Mountain Gorillas feed on green plant parts yet lowland gorilla’s feed on fruits.

During the dry seasons there very few juicy fruits hence the gorillas feed on tree barks and seeds. Gorillas of different ages climb trees   in order to feed. There many western gorillas that eat on a high percentage of stems, pith, shoots, and gorillas feed on less fruits than the chimpanzees.

The western gorillas literally eat broad food. These primates feed on over 250 plant species, and usually they feed on arrowroot families, ginger and many more.

Mountain Gorillas feast on the Virunga volcanoes thistles, nettles and other 38 plant species. Males are estimated to eat 30kg of plants, while the females feed on 19kg.

Gorillas use strong chewing muscles to enable them to eat large plant materials. The teeth are like human teeth, however when they grow up they get pointed canines of adult gorilla males.

Male Gorillas do not use canine teeth for feeding rather they use them for fighting against males.

Sometimes they feed on soil because they feed on plants which do not contain the minerals that are missing in their plants.

Gorillas normally do not kill big animals, they usually feed on small animals, this adds only 0.1% to their food, while as the chimpanzees feed up to 6% of the food.

Gorillas eat insects which is high prey diversity, higher than the chimpanzees. The differences in the nutritional composition of the gorilla and chimpanzee’s termite species.

They on termites since they are high in ash and iron. It’s also an anti-diarrheal characteristic. The western lowland gorillas feed on termites its one of their alternative.

Gorillas feed on different insect species depending on the region sometimes they do feed on traditional prey.