Humans work tirelessly for months to get a little abs for the sake of muscles. But our relatives gorilla is different, it mainly eats plants, and it is not like chimpanzees flying in trees, it can be said that it usually does not exercise, but it is "in excellent shape".
What do you see?
So, how strong are gorillas? Why is it so strong? Can humans, as their close relatives, imitate their diet? What changes have humans made in evolution?
The "otaku" gorillas in primates, who are vegetarian and do not exercise, why do they have muscles? Why can't close relatives of humans?
How strong are gorillas?
Many people can't distinguish between orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and simply call them orangutans, but don't think that they are all one!
Pictured is a chimpanzee
In fact, they belong to the same family as us humans. Orangutans, also known as orangutans, are members of the orangutan subfamily and were the first to separate from humans, dating back about 14 million years. The remaining gorillas and chimpanzees are members of the human subfamily and are more closely related to humans. Gorillas split up about 10 million years ago, and chimpanzees split up about 6 to 4 million years ago.
Phylogeny of primates
Gorillas are not only the strongest of the human family, but also the largest of the extant primates. By the way, King Kong in the movie is not a gorilla, it is based on an extinct humanoid giant ape.
Male gorillas can reach about 2 meters in length and weigh between 150 and 200 kilograms, and the largest individual ever appeared in zoos, weighing 220 kilograms. Female gorillas are much smaller, but still 1.4 to 1.5 meters long and weigh 80 to 150 kilograms.
A toned gorilla
The gorilla has a "bag" on the top of its head, and it has a prominent sagittal ridge on its skull, which is standard in herbivores and is intended to improve chewability. Humans and chimpanzees don't, indicating that we are omnivores.
It is reasonable to say that eating meat can have enough protein, and with protein, we can grow tall and strong, but we are completely inferior to the muscles of the old gorilla. What's more poignant is that gorillas don't exercise as much as humans.
Gorilla: I'm actually an otaku
Chimpanzees have stronger upper limbs than humans because they climb among trees every day. However, because of their large size, gorillas generally rarely practice gymnastics in trees, and more often rest on them, basically foraging on the ground. The most gorilla eats is a "plant salad", occasionally paired with a little ant as "caviar", and it is a vegetarian compared to the chimpanzee who opens the meat from time to time.
However, such a somewhat "homely" animal has grown a body of muscles, especially the arms of the gorilla, which are thick and powerful, and can unscrew the human celestial cover. Ordinary animals do not dare to mess with it, and there are records of male gorillas killing leopards.
Cheetah: Can't afford to hide
Is it the real animal warrior monk, vegetarian can also be strong in martial arts?
Why do gorillas grow so much muscle?
The muscular answer to the gorilla is in the gorilla's belly, nine out of ten gorillas are "beer belly", and one may be an underage. Through it we can know that eating vegetarian does not necessarily mean losing weight.
The gorilla's belly is so big, not because it eats too much, but because it is stuffed with intestines. It can be said that the big belly is the standard for another large herbivores after the sagittal ridge.
This is not pregnancy
Since ancient times, vegetarian fat people, this is not wrong, whether it is African buffalo, hippopotamus, elephants, the belly is not small, but the meat-eating animals, the figure is particularly good, such as cheetahs, wolves, leopards.
In fact, plants are not without nutrients, and if you want to absorb its nutrients, you must fully digest them, especially cellulose. We just can't digest cellulose, so there's See you tomorrow. Since gorillas do not have 4 stomachs like cattle and sheep, they cannot fully ferment the plant, so they take the way of lengthening their intestines to make their digestion and absorption more thorough.
Intestinal peristalsis simulation
The same plant, let people and gorillas eat, the energy produced is different. We humans excrete cellulose, and gorillas digest it and then excrete it. Since the absorption and utilization of plants exceeds that of humans, gorillas can grow muscles even without a lot of exercise and eating a lot of protein, because plants can also provide these.
Since the absorption of humans and gorillas under the same plants is incomparable, can we improve our nutrition by increasing the amount of vegetables we eat?
Eating vegetables is painful for many people
Can humans use the gorilla pattern to grow muscles?
Based on the habits of gorillas, we can infer that the ancestors of humans also experienced the days of pure vegetarianism, but our current gastrointestinal tract has evolved in the direction of omnivorous food, and we can no longer eat a lot of plants like our ancestors.
There may be small partners will feel strange, parents do not say eat more vegetables to grow taller? If we eat a lot of vegetables, we will grow tall and strong. Have you ever thought about why adults say these words, because children eat less vegetables, from the evolution of human beings, our proportion of meat has increased, many people still have the habit of eating meat. Of course, it is certainly not right not to eat vegetables, but it is also unhealthy to eat vegetables.
The amount of food ingested should be reasonable
Vegetables contain a lot of oxalic acid, and after eating too much, it will increase the burden on our stomach and intestines, because our physical environment is lightly alkaline, and consuming too much oxalic acid will hurt the body. Second, humans can't digest fiber, so it goes through the human digestive system from start to finish. If you eat a lot of vegetables, too much fiber, it will speed up the intestinal peristalsis, and people will have diarrhea. In addition, many of the substances in vegetables will accumulate in the human body, and in the long run, they will be deposited in the liver and form cirrhosis.
Every organ of the human body should be well maintained
In fact, the most critical thing is that the human brain needs a lot of energy supply every day, and it is completely insufficient to rely on the protein of vegetables alone, and it will be malnutrition to eat vegetables for a long time. Therefore, many people think that eating vegetarian food can lose weight, but it is not, but it will become more and more unhealthy, and finally put themselves in the hospital.
From here, we and the gorillas have taken two different paths. So what parts have we humans "magically changed" in order to evolve?
Illustration of human evolution
What changes have humans made to evolve?
Although the gorilla is very strong, powerful, and full of muscles, its lower limbs are very weak, commonly known as the instability of the lower plate. As a result, gorillas are difficult to walk upright, usually moving on all fours on the ground. Chimpanzees are a little stronger than they are, and chimpanzees can walk on two legs, but the posture is a bit funny and can't last long. Humans are different, human lower limbs are very strong, can run continuously, but also the endurance of primates.
Humans can run in all kinds of strange shapes
This is because humans have evolved to walk upright, narrow the pelvis, increase the torque, and can take a big stride. The pelvis becomes narrower, and when humans walk, the swing of the body will be smaller, and the human walking posture will not be like the two orangutans. And walking upright is more energy-efficient and efficient than walking on all fours, allowing humans to use the energy saved on the brain. So our brain capacity is directly 5 times that of a gorilla.
The size of the skull has a large impact on brain volume
But everything will pay a price, human beings have become bald and stronger, but human fertility has become weaker. In order to walk upright, humans narrowed their pelvic bones, but the time that the fetus stayed in the mother's body became shorter, and it became extremely difficult for humans to produce, and humans had to give birth to children early, and then had to devote more energy to raising weak babies.
Pelvic structure diagram
It can only be said that there is no absolute good, there is no absolute bad, we envy the full muscles of the gorilla, and perhaps the gorilla is still envious of our flexible posture. However, imitating each other's lives, it is still impossible to learn, we will have health problems when we eat too many dishes, gorillas walking upright will hurt bones, and muscles have become a burden.
It seems that even if we belong to the same subfamily, the gap between us is so large.