Pictured above is a silverback male of the Western Lowland Gorilla species, Gorilla gorilla gorilla. The family that contains the 4 gorilla subspecies, the Chimpanzees, and Humans is Hominidae. The Cross River subspecies, Gorilla gorilla diehli, is critically endangered having only 250 adults left in the wild. You can read more on Wikipedia and at the University of Wisconsin’s web page.

Both subspecies of Gorilla gorilla can have brownish hair on their heads, their hair is shorter than their eastern cousins, and they are smaller in overall weight and size. They live in Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria and the Republic of Congo. The Sanaga River separates the two subspecies from each other.

The second image shows a female Western Lowland Gorilla. Like the chimpanzee they have very expressive faces.

Next to the chimpanzees, they are our closest primate relatives. All of the Gorillas are endangered in their home ranges by encroachment and poaching by humans. They are also subject to death from diseases that affect humans and the chimpanzees. Ebola outbreaks threaten their existence as well as ours. It would be a tragedy for these intelligent creatures to go extinct because of the actions or inaction of our species.

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