A day of mountain gorillas in the wild involves a number of activities and begins with these creatures getting up early in the morning from their nests. A day of gorillas starts with looking for what eat in the whole morning and a group is led by a silverback. Mountain gorillas spend 30% of their day feeding; moving and coupling while 40% resting. They spend much of their time on ground and they can roam up to one kilometer everyday however, they keep within their home range of about 20 sq.km.
Mountain gorillas depend on vegetation although they also feed on ants and other insects. They thrive around the bamboo and feed on the bamboo shoots; leaves, stems, vines, fruits. A mature male gorilla can feed about 20kg every day and in the afternoon, these creatures rest and play.
Like humans, mountain gorillas do hug each other, bite, hit the ground and at the end of the day/evening, they built new nests. Each of them will have a nest except for mothers that may share with infants. Note, mountain gorillas set up new nests everyday for them to retire for the night. Nests are built using tree/plant branches.
Mountain gorillas spend their playing especially the young ones and also during integrations. This is one way for the infants to get acquainted to each other. It is time for them to communicate and explore different behaviors. They spend eight hours sleeping unless the weather it is cold. A day of mountain gorillas ends when they set up new nests to retire for the night.
Mountain gorillas share 98% of their DNA with humans and this makes them our closest living relatives in the wild. Currently, they remain not more than 1004 and only found in Mgahinga National Park and Bwindi National Park in southwestern Uganda, Volcanoes National Park in northwestern Rwanda and Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These creatures thrive in a group or family of 10 to 35 individuals with each family being led by a mature male (silverback).
A silverback gorilla is responsible of protecting other group members and also leads them to area to forage in the course of the day. A gorilla family comprises of many females, black backs, juveniles and infants. A new born gorilla weighs 2.5 kg and they grow fast enough and at 40 weeks, they can walk and when it reaches 3 years, it begins living an independent life but slowly.
At 6 years, their height reaches up to 1.20 meters and weigh 70kg. At this stage, females start maturing although they still gain weight for yet another 4 years. For males, they won’t reach maturity stage until they reach 10 years. At a time when their black backs begin changing into grey, it is actually time when they leave their original families. They begin moving lonely or instead join other male gorillas prior attracting females that later join them. At end of it all, they make up their own group. These creatures have a slow rate of reproduction and have a gestation of about 8.5 months with females giving birth to single babies and on rare occasions to twins. Mother gorillas usually do teach their young ones, serve as caregivers and the fathers are mainly teachers.
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