I believe that many people have seen 05 King Kong, falling in love with the heroine in Skull Island, in order to protect the heroine and at the same time fighting the three-headed Destroying Monarch Dragon without falling behind, the combat power is very strong, so how is the real silverback gorilla combat effectiveness?
05 King Kong
Gorillas are species of the genus Gorillas in the subfamily Primatedae, there are two subspecies, East Africa (mountain and lowland gorillas) and West Africa (lowland and Cross river gorillas), they are the largest species of average size of primates (the limit is Homo sapiens), with an average of about 170 kg and a limit of 360 kg.
The size of two gorillas
Of course, they are also one of the most overrated species, I don't know if it is because of the brainwashing of the King Kong movie, the gorilla in everyone's cognition is a hammer to burst the lion tiger spine and brown bear polar bear shoulder to shoulder, imagination is beautiful, reality is cruel, there are many research materials to prove that the natural enemy of gorillas is leopards, including silverback gorillas, silverback gorillas are male gorillas will grow silver-white hair on their backs when they become adults, so it is called silverback, of course, silverback is almost the leader of the orangutan, they mainly protect the safety of the group!
The silvery-white hair on the back can be seen
So why is it said that the natural enemy of gorillas is leopards, do they really can't beat leopards with such a large size, the headline jun feels that if you single-handedly single out the death match head-on, in fact, I think there is no problem in killing the leopard or dying together, but it is only at the stage of this beast, and you can't touch the lion and tiger at all, but the cat family is good at sneak attacks, the visibility in the rainforest is relatively low, plus leopards mostly hunt in the early morning or at night, and gorillas are day activities with almost no night vision, plus the reason why the primate pain system is relatively developed, Gorillas are easy to lose.
leopard
Next, let's get down to business, talk about some real reliable examples, and analyze the real combat effectiveness of the silverback gorilla. The object of comparison is the leopard, because the leopard is the only natural predator of the western lowland gorilla and the mountain gorilla other than humans, and it is arguably the best reference.
The following examples are scientific expeditions or close to scientific expeditions, and each involves silverback and is accompanied by substantial conflict:
The famous zoologist George Schaller, who studied gorillas in Africa and wrote the book "Mountain Gorillas", wrote in the book:
According to some literature, leopards approach quietly and prey on many young gorillas. Johnson mentioned in 1931 that his group had heard gorillas screaming at night in Kabbalah, and the next morning, they found all the gorillas out of the nest with two leopard tracks nearby. The hunter Burbridge told a story told to him by indigenous people in 1928 that a gorilla and a leopard fought at night and the leopard was found dead in the morning. (Note: Examples of gorillas killing leopards are anecdotal records and are not highly reliable; In addition, an article quotes George Schaller's book, saying that the silverback gorilla once died with a leopard, and Zoology looked through Schaller's book and found no such thing. ）
In the small town of Kisoro in western Uganda, Baumgatl (the founder of Uganda's gorilla tourism) never found leopards preying on mountain gorillas between 1955~1960. However, in September 1960, a female gorilla died of unknown causes. Then, in February 1961, Baumgartel obtained the first evidence of leopard predation on gorillas, which he described in his report to the Ugandan hunting department: On February 14, 1961, the guide Ruben and two companions found a red antelope lying in a pool of blood, still breathing, and a leopard-like sound came from behind the bushes, but it quickly disappeared. Looking around the scene, a dead silverback gorilla lies nearby, and traces on the ground show that there was a battle before. Along the flattened vegetation, Ruben and the others came 50 yards uphill, where the gorilla family rested at night. According to Reuben's analysis, the victim male gorilla was raided, and when it lay on the ground to sleep, the leopard pounced on it, and then both rolled downhill to the place where the gorilla carcass was found. The gorilla's right groin was scratched, its intestines exposed, and its neck was badly injured, but it was not fed. Three days later, Ruben and his assistants disturbed a leopard eating a female gorilla that also had her femoral sulcus cut and her artery severed.
A few months later, on the morning of July 3, 1961, biology professor Dale Zimmerman, along with his guide Ruben, witnessed a black leopard creeping close to the four gorillas, but in the end, the leopard failed, and after realizing that the timing was wrong, the panther quickly disappeared. It is very likely that this panther killed the previous gorillas.
Another evidence of leopard attacks on silverback gorillas comes from the Central African Republic, where ecologist Michael Fay and his team observed two interactive records of leopards and gorillas at two study sites in the eighteen months of 1987~1988 during the study of western lowland gorillas. First, on October 10, 1988, the expedition team collected fresh feces from a leopard, which contained loose skin, hair and two partially preserved toes, and after fur identification and toe size comparison, finally concluded that it was an 11-year-old gorilla.
Whether the first record is predation or scavenging, the gorilla being eaten is obviously not silverback, and the second record that will be talked about next involves a silverback gorilla. At 5 p.m. on October 21, 1988, scholars heard gorillas screaming and running violently in the distance, roughly 400 meters northwest of the camp. Within minutes, several researchers were quickly arriving at the site, by which time the gorillas had headed east. Surveying the site revealed that large areas of vegetation were broken, the deciduous layer was disorganized, and many small trees had left leopard claw marks, there was evidence that the gorilla was in a bipedal position, and a broken stick was found with peeling bark and bloody ends. All indications are that a thrilling battle has taken place here.
Continuing eastward, the gorilla's footprints were traced and a leopard's footprints overlapped with those of a large individual gorilla. The gorilla ran so desperately that after running 300 meters to the east, it directly overturned a log 2 meters long and 0.4 meters in diameter, displacing it by 0.6 meters and leveling the vegetation. Then, the gorilla's footprint extended further south, and at 6 p.m., the tracking had to be suspended because it was dark. At half-past six, the sound of gorillas beating their chests was heard from the east side of the camp, and soon after, the beating of the chest of a second gorilla was heard hundreds of meters to the south. Several repeated chest beating sounds show that the gorilla is still moving south. Early the next morning, the researchers regained control of the gorillas' escape routes, and this time, they found the footprints of two orangutans, which are easily reminiscent of two gorillas that frequent the area, a silver-backed male and a black-backed male. The gorilla trail follows the open elephant trail directly south, at which point the leopard's footprints overlap again, indicating that the leopard is still in hot pursuit. The gorilla then travels along the bank of a steep river and crosses a stream. Here, it's worth noting that loose soil stones, as well as crushed vegetation, show that the gorilla apparently rolled down the hillside. On the other side, the gorilla ran wildly for another three kilometers, after which the leopard's footprints no longer overlapped with the orangutan, and by this point, the leopard should have given up the hunt for the gorilla. Footprints show that after the leopard gave up, the gorilla still did not dare to take it lightly, and then ran another 1.5 kilometers before taking a break. So far, the gorilla has not shed feces and bleeding along the way, and the researchers also briefly observed the silverback gorilla and found that it showed no signs of injury and normal feeding behavior, which can be determined that the silverback was not injured after the conflict with the leopard. In the study area, the researchers never found gorilla hair or bones in leopard feces. This example is enough to prove the threat of the leopard to the silverback gorilla, this time the leopard did not choose to start when the gorilla slept in the middle of the night, but launched an attack at 5 pm when the light was still good, the raid was obviously a failure, we can imagine that the silverback should be trying to poke the leopard with a stick, and after a short conflict, the silverback chose to retreat and ran wildly all the way. After some time, Silverback and its companion, the Blackback male, rendezvous, fled all the way south, crossing the creek, and Zoology was not sure if they had ever been chased by leopards, as there were signs of orangutans rolling on the slope. In general, this battle, the leopard and the gorilla have their own highlights, the leopard fights the silverback when the light is good, and chases the silverback and blackback two gorillas for kilometers away after the night grows; The silverback gorilla prevented the leopard's raid, chose to flee after a little fighting, and echoed with his companion black-backed orangutan in the process, escaped the leopard's chase together, and was basically unharmed.
Primatologist Martha Robbins, who has studied western lowland gorillas in the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the 90s, found three gorillas at high risk of being preyed upon by leopards. A silverback gorilla in the Republic of the Congo was found dead after losing all of its female mates, with traces of predation by leopards, and it was in poor condition at the time, which may be the reason for its loss of the orangutan herd. A silverback in the Central African Republic and a blackback in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are also likely to be killed by leopards, both of which are in good condition. However, although traces from the scene suggest that leopards probably killed three orangutans, Robbins also did not completely rule out the possibility of leopard scavenging. On November 16, 1999, scholar Chipoletta observed a silverback gorilla seriously injured in Central Africa, and trampled vegetation near the nest indicated that there had been a vicious battle at night, and the evidence was not enough to determine whether the other party was a leopard or another silverback, but it had suspicious claw-like scars on its back, indicating that the leopard was more likely. The attack was not fatal, but it destroyed the rule of the silverback, the size of the group it led was reduced by more than half, and the subordinate Silverback gained control of most of the team. In 1999, Watson reported on a lone adult male gorilla being chased and attacked by a leopard, and it is unknown whether the gorilla died in the Central African Republic. The above cases can be concluded that the combat power of gorillas is not as powerful as it seems, but it cannot be underestimated.
Because of habitat destruction, gorillas and chimpanzees have more and more opportunities to meet, because the food is basically the same, the proportion of chimpanzee meat is much higher, so they will hunt gorillas in groups, just talked about being sneak attacked, then look at the performance of gorillas in frontal combat, are things that have happened in recent years, one of which a silverback and three females and a cub face 27 chimpanzees surrounded, except for the cubs, the rest are basically not injured, chimpanzees are the fourth largest primate in existence, On average, it is only less than 10 kilograms smaller than us Homo sapiens, and the combat effectiveness of the death match may be ≥ that of ordinary humans, but although the four adult gorillas were defeated because of insufficient numbers, they did not protect their cubs but they were not injured, and in contrast, chimpanzees there, about seven or eight chimpanzees were injured and one of them was seriously injured and died, and the second conflict 7 gorillas and 27 chimpanzees fought again, the gorillas were eaten again a cub, a female gorilla was injured, and the other five saw that the situation was not good, prodded,
In the face of more than two dozen chimpanzees in the face of a death match, even black bears can not retreat all over, adult gorillas are almost unscathed, this is mainly because primates lack lethal means of attack, by the way, the performance of King Kong in the movie reality gorillas many can not do, for example, they can not make quick punches and hit with wooden sticks, this is mainly because their joints are not as flexible as we humans, but there are cases of sticks to poke leopards, and there are many types of primates, most of them are omnivorous, But gorillas are one of the few almost vegan primates, and although they eat insects, they only eat insects when they eat grass and leaves. It can be compared with other omnivorous primates to find that gorillas have a very large belly, and their stomachs are not filled with fat, but in their huge stomachs and very long intestines, because the nutrients in plants are not easy to extract, so vegetarian animals need thick stomachs to store more food and digest food longer. So gorillas' intestines are very long, and they also have special intestinal bacteria, which can fully digest and decompose the plant cellulose they eat into their stomachs. These cellulose can be converted and synthesized into amino acids and proteins in the gorilla, and the presence of amino acids can improve muscle mass This is similar to primates in another type of primate diet, the colobus monkey subfamily, the subfamily is almost vegetarian accounting for 99%, most of the members have a big belly for better digestion of vegetarian diets, of which proboscis monkeys have evolved more successfully to eat vegetarian diets, and cloven-hoofed "worshipers", becoming the only primate that will ruminate, If you still don't know the subfamily Colobus monkey, emmmm, the golden monkey is from this subfamily. Then the gorilla's unique eating habits are almost blown into carnivores, and many people mistake chimpanzees for gorillas.
Chimpanzees above, gorillas below
By the way, gorillas' way of fighting is to pounce together, push and gnaw, their bite force is large just because of their large size, if the same body size than the bite force is really not enough to see, it is not the so-called boxing at all, and their strength cannot be 7-20 times that of ordinary people, too exaggerated. The overall ability of each person believes that the head-on is at the level of the jaguar.