Female gorillas must balance the reproductive costs of staying with or leaving an older male

Date: September 11, 2019

Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

When a gorilla group's silverback is close to the end of his reproductive years, females face a dilemma: Should they stay with him until he dies or leave him for another male? A team of researchers has now found that both strategies bear its costs: females face reproductive costs of staying with an older male as well as costs when they transfer to a new silverback.

In western lowland gorillas, groups consist of several females and only one adult male, the silverback. With his impressive body size, he protects his group against predators and other adult males. Females rely on this protection and never travel alone, however they may change groups multiple times during their lives. "Female gorillas seem to have different strategies when it comes to reproduction and transfer," says Marie Manguette, first author of the study. "We have observed females transferring to another group after every weaned offspring and therefore up to six times in their lives, while others have stayed and bred with the same male for 20 years."

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Gorillas found to live in 'complex' societies, suggesting deep roots of human social evolution

JULY 9, 2019

by University of Cambridge

Gorillas have more complex social structures than previously thought, from lifetime bonds forged between distant relations, to "social tiers" with striking parallels to traditional human societies, according to a new study.

The findings suggest that the origins of our own social systems stretch back to the common ancestor of humans and gorillas, rather than arising from the "social brain" of hominins after diverging from other primates, say researchers.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the study used over six years of data from two research sites in the Republic of Congo, where scientists documented the social exchanges of hundreds of western lowland gorillas.

"Studying the social lives of gorillas can be tricky," said lead author Dr. Robin Morrison, a biological anthropologist from the University of Cambridge. "Gorillas spend most of their time in dense forest, and it can take years for them to habituate to humans."

"Where forests open up into swampy clearings, gorillas gather to feed on the aquatic vegetation. Research teams set up monitoring platforms by these clearings and record the lives of gorillas from dawn to dusk over many years."

Some data came from a project in the early 2000s, but most of the study's observational data was collected from the Mbeli Bai clearing, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, where scientists have recorded gorilla life stories for over 20 years.

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Gorillas gather around and groom their dead

Date:  April 3, 2019

Source:  PeerJ

It is now known that many animals exhibit unique behaviors around same-species corpses, ranging from removal of the bodies and burial among social insects to quiet attendance and caregiving among elephants and primates. Researchers in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo have been able to take a close look at the behavioral responses to the deaths of three individuals -- both known and unknown -- in gorillas and have reported their findings in PeerJ -- the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences.

Scientists from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the University of California Davis, Uppsala University, and the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature observed and filmed the behavior of mountain gorillas around the corpses of a 35-year-old dominant adult male and a 38-year-old dominant adult female from the same social group living in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Both individuals had died a few hours earlier of illnesses possibly linked to their advanced age. Researchers also studied the behavior of a group of Grauer's gorillas who found the body of a recently deceased adult male in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Gorillas are far more numerous than previously thought, survey reveals

Larger-than-expected population in Africa gives hope for species survival, scientists say, but animal remains critically endangered

Damian Carrington Environment editor

Wed 25 Apr 2018 19.00 BSTLast modified on Wed 25 Apr 2018 22.00 BST

There are far more gorillas left in the world than previously thought, according to a landmark new survey, with numbers as much as double earlier estimates.

However, their populations are continuing to fall fast, down 20% in just eight years, leaving them critically endangered. Furthermore, 80% of the remaining gorilla troops do not live in protected areas, leaving them vulnerable to the threats the researchers summarise as “guns, germs and [felled] trees”.

The decade-long survey in western equatorial Africa involved almost 9,000km of foot patrols and used the nests that gorillas make every night to assess the population. The scientists covered the entire range of the western lowland gorilla, which accounts for 99% of all living gorillas, now thought to number around 360,000 animals.

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Nigeria's superhighway threatens local communities, elephants, and gorillas

Date: October 28, 2016
Source: Wildlife Conservation Society

A proposed superhighway in Nigeria's Cross River State will displace 180 indigenous communities and threaten one of the world's great centers of biodiversity if completed, according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).

In response, WCS is launching an international campaign to encourage decision makers in Nigeria to pursue alternative development options to either reroute the proposed highway away from the protected areas and community forests along the border area with Cameroon, or to rehabilitate existing highways. The campaign has generated 41,786 petitions since October 14.

The process of clearing a corridor for the project has already begun but has been temporarily halted as a result of protests from local communities, which helped to initiate an environmental impact assessment, but work on the highway could restart at any time.

The WCS campaign is teaming up with the Ekuri Initiative, an award-winning forest stewardship organization run by one of the many indigenous communities in the path of the proposed highway. The Ekuri Initiative has already delivered 253,000 signatures to the federal government asking for Nigerian President Buhari to protect their precious ancestral forests, and WCS is asking its followers to sign on with their support. You can sign the petition here: http://bit.ly/2dWeKxB.

"The proposed highway poses an enormous threat to the cultures and the wildlife of the entire region," said John Calvelli, WCS's Executive Vice President for Public Affairs and Director for the 96 Elephants campaign and other public engagement efforts for conservation. "We're happy to lend our support to the Ekuri Initiative in the effort to save the local communities of Cross River State and the irreplaceable natural treasures also found there."

 

Continued  

Surprising results from a new study reveal the heel bone from our fossil relative is closer related to gorillas

August 11, 2016

The new study that for the first time examined the internal anatomy of a fossil human relative's heel bone, or calcaneus, shows greater similarities with gorillas than chimpanzees.

The study, titled "Trabecular architecture in the StW 352 fossil hominin calcaneus," and published in the Journal of Human Evolution, was undertaken by a team of international researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, Duke University, University of Southern California and Indiana University in the US.

The team examined the internal anatomy of our human relative, the StW 352 Australopithecus africanus fossil, from South Africa's rich fossil record in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, some 40km from Johannesburg.

They analyzed the structure and orientation of trabecular struts – the spongy material inside a bone – in the fossil from Sterkfontein Member 4, demonstrating greater similarities between it and the heel bone of gorillas rather than humans or chimpanzees.

In doing this, the team revealed new insights into how our ancestors moved through and interacted with their environment approximately 2 – 2.5 million years ago. Similarities between the fossil from Sterkfontein and gorillas indicate that Australopithecus africanus, the species of human ancestor (or hominin) also represented by the Taung Child, or at least this individual member of the species, exhibited gorilla-like levels of joint mobility and structural reinforcement.

Results of the new study were surprising because other recent studies of the australopithecine calcaneus, focusing on its external anatomy, have emphasised similarities with chimpanzees or humans.

However, since the organisation of trabecular bone is determined in part by how an animal interacts with its environment during its lifetime, the gorilla-like features observed in the present study are particularly compelling in revising how we view behavioural reconstructions of our australopithecine ancestors.

Read more at: 

What happened to the gorillas who met David Attenborough?

Sir David Attenborough's encounter with a family of mountain gorillas is one of the most iconic TV moments of his career so far. But what became of the other characters in those famous scenes?

By Ian Redmond

12 May 2016

The family of gorillas that Sir David met was in fact two families, known to the scientists who studied them as Group 4 and Group 5. They roamed the forest-clad slopes of the Virunga Volcanoes of Rwanda, close to and sometimes over the border with what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know

It was January 1978 when the 'Life on Earth' film crew arrived at The Karisoke Research Centre right in the middle of a crisis – Digit, a young silverback in Group 4, had been speared to death by poachers a few days prior to the film crew's arrival.

Karisoke was then a collection of green corrugated iron cabins at 10,000 ft (3,000m), and at that point had been my home for 14 months. As a newly graduated biologist, it had been my great good fortune to be taken on as Dr Dian Fossey's research assistant. The work involved tracking the gorillas each day to make observations on their behaviour and ecology – and in my case, their parasites because I am fascinated by all life forms – so I knew both groups well.

Unfortunately Dian was unwell and on top of that, grieving for the loss of one of her favourite gorillas. Nevertheless I could see Dian was thrilled at the prospect of the BBC coming to film her study animals.

She told me she had met David Attenborough in London once, but in the turbulent circumstances I was the one who was sent to pick up the film crew from the Rwandan capital Kigali and, once installed in the guest cabins, to introduce them to the gorillas – an experience that none of us will ever forget.

Let's look at three of the most memorable scenes in the 'Life on Earth' gorilla sequences and identify the gorilla characters.

continued ...

Why Hope Remains for Saving the World's Largest Gorillas (Op-Ed)

by Andrew Plumptre, WCS; Stuart Nixon, Chester Zoo; Radar Nishuli, ICCN Kahuzi-Biega National Park | April 07, 2016 05:24pm ET

Andrew Plumptre is a senior conservationist in the Uganda Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Stuart Nixon is a conservationist at Chester Zoo in the U.K. who was working with Fauna & Flora International at the time these surveys were made. Radar Nishuli is chief park warden for the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo working for the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN). The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The Rwandan genocide in 1994 forced hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which two years later became embroiled in a calamitous civil war — an estimated five million lives were lost there over the following seven years. Alongside the human tragedy, the war has taken its toll on DRC's wildlife, as lawlessness, a heightened illegal bushmeat trade and increased deforestation took hold.

In 2011, the three institutions we worked for began a study to find out how those tragedies impacted the world's largest primate, the Grauer's gorilla. What we learned was shocking — a combination of illegal hunting, civil unrest and habitat loss from mining has led to a catastrophic collapse. Our research documents a devastating — nearly 80 percent — drop in the population of this gorilla subspecies, one of only four, from an estimated 17,000 individuals in 1995 to just 3,800 today. 

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How closely related are gorillas and humans? Closer than you might think.

APRIL 1, 2016

by Chuck Bednar

A new effort to sequence the gorilla genome has filled in many of the gaps from the first attempt to map the primate's DNA while revealing that they may be more closely related to humans than previously believed, according to research published Friday in the journal Science.

University of Washington professor of genome sciences Evan Eichler and his colleagues used an 11-year-old Western lowland gorilla named Susie as the subject for their sequencing efforts, and found that human and gorilla genomes diverge by just 1.6 percent, Reuters reported on Thursday. Only bonobos and chimpanzees are more closely related to humans, they added.

Among the area of genetic divergence are the immune and reproductive systems, the areas that control sensory perception, those governing the production of the protein keratin (which is used by the body to build hair, skin and fingernails) and those that regulate insulin. Their research has also resulted in the discovery of thousands of new protein and peptide-encoding segments.

The differences between the species “may aid researchers in identifying regions of the human genome that are associated with higher cognition, complex language, behavior and neurological diseases,” study author Christopher Hill, a genetic researcher at UW, told the news agency.

Study could shed new light on evolutionary history of gorillas, humans

The sequencing effort is part of the university’s efforts to compile a comprehensive catalog of genetic differences between humans and all of the great apes, including gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees, Reuters said. A blood sample from Susie, who now lives at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, was taken when she was at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.

Eichler, Hill and their fellow researchers used Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) technology and the assembly tools Falcon and QUIVER as part of their sequencing attempts. In a statement, they explained that these methods allowed them to generate long sequence reads more than 100 times the length of many other, commonly used technologies.

Read more at 

Fossil reveals humans, gorillas split two to three million years earlier than thought

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

by Brett Smith

A lack of fossil evidence has prevented scientists from determining exactly when we humans split off from our primate cousins, but newly discovered remains shed new light on the question.

According to a new report in the journal Nature, an analysis of eight million-year-old fossilized gorilla teeth has indicated humans split from gorillas around 10 million years ago, which is two to three million years earlier than previously thought.

Past research has revealed that humans and great apes share a common lineage, inspiring archeologists and others to locate evidence of when breaks took place from gorillas and later chimps, our closest primate relative. Genetic information has indicated that humans broke from chimps as recently as five million years ago and with gorillas about seven to eight million years ago.

Gorillas in the midst

In 2007, a team of scientists discovered nine ancient gorilla teeth fossils in a geological formation in Ethiopia. An extinct species of primate was identified based on the fossils and given the name Chororapithecus abyssinicus.

Read more at

Cell phones are endangering gorillas and chipanzees

by Brian Galloway

Chimpanzees and gorillas are both critically endangered species, and believe it or not, one of the contributing factors to these primates’ ongoing struggle is the smartphone that you use every day, one conversation expert told National Geographic during a recent interview.

In the interview, author and conservationist Nancy Merrick explained that the capacitors used in cell phones typically contain Columbite-tantalite or Coltan, a black tar-like material that is found in the Congo and can be refined into a powder than holds an electric charge.

Coltan, which is also used in laptops and some other types of electronic devices, has reportedly caused a considerable amount of illegal militia activity related to its mining and seeing, Merrick explained. This activity has also helped spur on deforestation in the Congo basin, one of the main reasons why the chimp and gorilla populations are on the decline.

“We’re already seeing that where chimps and gorillas live near human habitats their forests are being rapidly converted to agriculture,” Merrick, who was being interviewed to promote her new book ChimpSaver.org, told Nat Geo on Wednesday.

Read more at

Gorilla origins of the last two AIDS virus lineages confirmed

Date:

March 3, 2015

Source:

Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)

Summary:

Two of the four known groups of human AIDS viruses (HIV-1 groups O and P) have originated in western lowland gorillas, according to new research. The scientists conducted a comprehensive survey of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection in African gorillas.

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Zoo-Raised Gorillas Prefer Forest Sounds Over Chopin

Jyoti Madhusoodanan, ISNS Contributor | May 12, 2014 04:32pm ET

(ISNS) -- The sounds of a gently babbling stream or leaves rustling in the wind can calm city-dwellers far from woodsy retreats. These natural sounds may also influence the behavior of gorillas raised in zoos that have never seen a rainforest.

Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) exhibited fewer stress-related behaviors when a recording of rainforest sounds was played in their enclosure. They responded more strongly to these sounds than to classical or rock music, or no music at all. The results, accepted for publication in the journal Zoo Biology, suggest that the forest melodies were more effective at reducing stress-induced habits such as hair-plucking or regurgitating food in the three gorillas studied.

Previous research on how music affects zoo-housed gorillas produced mixed results. One study found adult gorillas were more agitated and aroused by rainforest sounds. Another paper found that the animals appeared more relaxed in response to music – whether classical or forest tunes – than when no music was played to them.

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Gorillas reintroduced into Congo & Gabon are thriving

The reintroduction of western lowland gorillas by The Aspinall Foundation to areas of Africa where they have been hunted to extinction appears to be working, according to a scientific study.

October 2013. The Aspinall Foundation's reintroduction of western lowland gorillas to areas of Africa where they have been hunted to extinction appears to be working, according to a new scientific study. 

Critically Endangered

Western lowland gorillas are classified by the World Conservation Union as Critically Endangered, based on a projected 80% decline in the wild over just three generations, ranking them alongside the most threatened species on the planet. Reintroduction of gorillas to protected areas from where they have previously been exterminated is still considered controversial, but a pioneering, long-term programme to do just that is starting to show it may be possible after all.

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Healthy elephant numbers but gorilla decline recorded in Congo's Odzala-Kokoua National Park

Increased anti-poaching efforts to combat greater encroachment

October 2013. An estimated 9,600 forest elephants still reside in Odzala-Kokoua National Park in Republic of Congo, according to the results of a wildlife census commissioned by African Parks in 2012, but just released. Whilst higher than expected, this healthy number is believed to be a result of compression, with elephants fleeing highly poached areas outside the park and moving into the safety of the centre of Odzala.

The Odzala census was conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) on behalf of African Parks. A total of 83 transects covering 208 kilometres were walked during the survey, which was a follow up to censuses conducted in 2005 and 2008. WCS recalibrated its results from its previous surveys to ensure consistency of analysis over the three survey periods.

Dr Fiona Maisels, who supervised the census, said the results indicated that an estimated 9,600 elephants currently live in the Park (with 95% confidence limits between 7,500 and 12,400). Of these, 65% reside in the southern sector. "There has been no significant change in elephant density since the first comprehensive survey of 2005," she said.

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New Evidence That Orangutans and Gorillas Can Match Images Based On Biological Categories

Sep. 10, 2013 — The ability to form a general concept that connects what we know about the members of a category allows humans to respond appropriately when they encounter a novel member of that category. At an early age, children form categories to, for example, differentiate animals from inanimate objects and to differentiate dogs from cats. New research shows that other apes may form similar categories to represent different types of animals.

There are at least two ways to visually identify an animal as being similar to any other: the animals may be within a species and therefore closely resemble each other (so called 'perceptual' differences) or the animals may be considered to meet the criteria for a broader mental concept (for example, "reptiles do not have fur, they have short legs or have no legs, and lay eggs -- these all seem like reptiles"). Concept formation in human children has been subjected to extensive experimental study, with much focus on the interplay between concept acquisition and language acquisition. It has been proposed that these broader concepts depend upon formal scientific training and/or the ability to form verbal labels for such concepts. If non-human animals represent such concepts, this finding would be evidence against such a view. It is surprising then that the existence of natural categories, such as classification of animals, has not been extensively studied in language-less non-human apes. Studies of concepts in animals have instead paid close attention to the perceptual features that are used by the animals to extract information about category membership but have not typically allowed animals to demonstrate that they can also form concepts at different levels of breadth simultaneously.

In this study, a young female gorilla and four orangutans of various ages were shown images of animals and asked to match them to an image from the same species or family (i.e. one with a perceptual similarity). In an alternate experiment, they were presented with images of animals belonging to different taxonomic classes (insects, reptiles, fish, birds, and mammals) and were asked to match these images to sample images of other members of that class.

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30% off gorillas until the end of May

Uganda Wildlife Authority discounts gorilla permits until the end of May 

April 2013. The management of Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has launched a Gorilla tracking promotion. Foreign Non Residents will pay US $ 350 for a permit, Foreign Residents US$300 and East Africans will part with U sh 150,000 a permit.

This applies to unsold permits for this period and does not include prepayments before announcement of this promotion. 

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/gorilla-discount.html

Gorillas Caught in the Crossfire in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mar. 13, 2013 — The world's leading conservation organizations have joined together to fight for the survival of the Endangered Grauer's or eastern lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri).

Found only in the mountain and mid-altitude forests of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Grauer's gorilla is not only the largest of the four gorilla subspecies but also the largest primate in the world.

With their entire range consumed in conflict since 1996, important populations of Grauer's and their chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) relatives have gone largely unmonitored. Different sources have offered varying population estimates since that time, but their true status is unknown.

The Jane Goodall Institute, Fauna & Flora International (FFI), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), Conservation International (CI), the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGFI), and local conservation organizations have partnered with the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), the Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism (MECNT), national military and police authorities, and local communities to support the implementation of a recently completed International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Conservation Action Plan for great apes in the eastern DRC.

Continued: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130313111931.htm

Outgoing Gorillas Live Longer Than Shy Ones

Extroverted gorillas in captivity outlive their shy brethren, a new study of these great apes in North American zoos and sanctuaries finds.

Using methods adapted from studying human personality, keepers, volunteers, researchers and other caretakers gauged 298 individual gorillas' temperaments. These gorillas were followed over 18 years and their life spans recorded. The results revealed the the more sociable, active, playful and curious the gorilla, the longer it was likely to live.

The results are consistent with studies finding that human extroverts outlive introverts, too, study researcher Alex Weiss of the University of Edinburgh said in a statement.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/25254-outgoing-gorillas-outlive-shy.html

"Labor Day Sasquatch Film"

We've seen some strange footage of Gorillas in the wild before, but this one takes the cake. This place looks nothing like the African forests we're used to seeing. If this person is trying to play it off as a real "Sasquatch", then did a good job getting filming a live animal in the wild (very difficult to do). This YouTube video is titled "Labor Day Sasquatch Film".



http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/labor-day-sasquatch-film.html?spref=fb