Gorilla

Gorillas (genus Gorilla) are great apes and the largest living primates. They are mostly ground-dwelling and predominantly herbivorous, living in the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. Most authorities recognize two species: the western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) and the eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei), and four subspecies. The western gorilla includes the western lowland gorilla (G. g. gorilla), which inhabits lowland rainforests and swampy forests across parts of west-central Africa, and the Cross River gorilla (G. g. diehli), restricted to a small forested region along the Nigeria–Cameroon border near the Cross River. The eastern gorilla includes the mountain gorilla (G. b. beringei), found in the high-elevation forests of the Virunga region and Bwindi and the eastern lowland (Grauer’s) gorilla (G. b. graueri), which lives in forests of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Across the genus, gorilla habitats span from lowland forests and swamps to montane forests, so they occupy a wide elevation range despite having a relatively limited overall geographic distribution.