What Does Gorilla Food Look, How Do Gorillas Feed?

Gorilla Trekking in Volcanoes National Park

Mountain gorillas are principally herbivores and they enjoy feeding on products of green plants but sometimes unfriendly conditions like hot weather drive them towards eating rotten wood, barks of trees and small invertebrates.

The lowland gorillas of West Africa prefer fruits and they therefore have to climb trees more than the mountain gorillas do in order to reach the sweet ripe fruits. The mountain gorillas get food from about 38 species of plants including celery, nettles, gallium and thistles; silverbacks can be seen uprooting bamboo shoots without difficulty and then grinding it easily with their humanlike dental formula.

The lowland gorillas on the other hand have over 100 tree species from which to choose their fruits.The size and weight of the male mountain gorillas as compared to the females, explains why they consume more food than the females in a day.

Males consume an average of 30kg of plants a day while the females eat an average of 18kg. Gorillas do not chew cud and therefore depend on their jaw muscles and teeth to chew the food into fine soft material before it is swallowed.Gorillas have a dental system which is comparable to the human dental formula. The only difference is in the silverbacks’ canines which are quite long and hard; but they are never used for feeding. The strong canines supplement the strong limbs of the gorilla during a fight with other mountain gorillas or predators. These are used to bight and injure the enemy if need be.

The speed with at which a gorilla consumes its food depends on its age. A youthful gorilla is a faster eater but as it grows past the age of 35 years its gum muscles begin to weaken and the gorilla will begin to lose some of its teeth and this makes it harder and slower for it to chew its food.