Photo of the Day #93: Female Gorilla

While the mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei)studied by Diane Fossey might be the most familiar to the public, the vast majority of living gorillas are Western (or lowland) gorillas, Gorilla gorilla. While myths about these animals had circulated for some time, they were officially named in 1847 (the mountain species not being named until 1903), but of the two gorilla species they are generally less studied. Western gorillas differ from mountain gorillas in that they eat much more fruit and are more arboreal, and some populations have been observed to use tools (the elusive Cross River population has been seen to throw objects to keep other creatures out of their territory, and a paper in PLoS describes some other recently observed instances of tool use). The above photo is of a female Western gorilla at the Bronx zoo.