Cross River Gorillas- Gorilla Trekking: Primate Safaris

Cross river gorillas the most beautiful apes that can be seen while on primate Safari in Africa.  These primates have special characteristics that make them differ from the mountain gorillas, Western Lowland gorillas, Eastern Lowland gorillas such as prehensile hands and feet, they have shoulders and hips and unlike other mammals, they have particularly flexible and limber shoulders and hip joints and there Brain is one most distinguishable from other types of animals or mammals.

The appearance of the cross river gorillas is not very different from the other species, they have teeth, feet apparently shorter than the western lowland gorilla, a broad nose with wide nasal passages, opposable thumbs, and fingers.

They are herbivores in nature with a life span of over 30- 50 years they live in Lowland forests in a range of the congo basin their scientific name is gorilla diehli .

Did you know that much as they fear human interaction their gestation is almost close to that of human beings?

This subspecies of the western gorilla, named by Paul matschie in 1904, was surveyed in 1987. It is a  very elusive animal and was discovered in the early 1900s but was not caught on video until 2009, it lives in an isolated, heavily forested area along the border of Nigeria and Cameroon are known as the cross-river region.

Separated by about 300km from the nearest population of western lowland gorillas and around 250km from the gorilla population in the Ebo forest of Cameroon.In parks like  Cross River National park in Okwangwo Division, Takamanda National Parkland, and Limbe Wildlife Center

They are too shy that studying them becomes difficult since they avoid interactions with humans and also they are critically endangered. Since they are shy their reproductive study is a bit hard but we know they are polygamous, with a single dominant male mating with multiple females. They live in groups of 2 to 20 individuals and the groups are made up of the dominant gorilla several females and their offspring. Other information comes from observing the western lowland gorilla. Scientists agree that the 2 species are alike and most likely have similar reproductive habits.

On this assumption, the female gorillas reach maturity at 10 years and males do not usually mate until they are 15 because of competition of females. The amount of time they carry the baby before giving birth is the same as humans, at nine months they give birth and breast feed the young ones close to three years. Typically they have only 1 baby at a time and they will care for it until the baby is 3 to 4 years the result of this dedicated care is that they will only give birth once every four years. Thus being the reason why the population has not recovered from the damage done by hunting and habitat loss.