The atlas type is the western gorilla -- a knuckle-walking ape whose Fossey-era mountain cousins and Koko lab fame split one public name.
Also called: western gorilla · Gorilla gorilla · pongo of old books
Gorilla is one of 24 types in this animals atlas. The pages treat it as a full system -- history, anatomy, operating principles, culture, icons, future pressure and market shape -- not a ranking of a best species.
Scores compare the gorilla with the other 23 types on speed, intelligence, range, resilience, cultural impact and ecological role. They are relative editorial marks. Resilience high means more secure; low means threatened. Western gorilla Critically Endangered; mountain gorilla (a different species, G. beringei) is Endangered after a guarded rebound. Resilience here follows the atlas type: CR.
Seven chapters follow: origins, systems, how the animal works, cultural life, named icons, what conservation can still change, and how tourism, conflict, fisheries and parks move money.
Deep introduction
Gorilla is not a single postcard animal. It is a set of populations, subspecies and human rules inside the wildlife family of this atlas.
Diversity, bodies, culture and ranges — plus a lens tuned to this language region.
Field guides collapse many lineages into the English word gorilla. Subspecies, flyways and captive lines do not share one fate -- bald eagles and Philippine eagles, or western and mountain gorillas, are the caution.
This atlas picks a Wikipedia title as the hero image and then keeps the rest of the grade in view so a recovered stock cannot launder a CR cousin.
A massive knuckle-walker with a sagittal crest in males, a gut for fibrous plants, and nests built new each night. The atlas type is western; the silverback image is shared.
All-day herbivory -- fruit in western forests, more pith in some mountain diets. A CR ape is a slow calorie machine, not a hunter.
English-language culture met the gorilla through film, law, heraldry and zoos. Those portrayals move money and sometimes take; they are not a field census.
The culture chapter dates posters and statutes so a 1975 film or a 1961 logo cannot pretend to be a 2020s Red List.
Western gorilla Critically Endangered; mountain gorilla (a different species, G. beringei) is Endangered after a guarded rebound. Resilience here follows the atlas type: CR.
Tourism, conflict payments, quotas and captive loans are dated economic bands in the market chapter -- not live prices and not a best-species prize.
Life-science deep dive
Gorilla biology is a stack of structure, energy, sensing and hard limits. The four sections below are the same headings used across the atlas so types can be compared without a best-species frame.
Anatomy, senses, behaviour and limits — plus field language for this region.
A massive knuckle-walker with a sagittal crest in males, a gut for fibrous plants, and nests built new each night. The atlas type is western; the silverback image is shared.
Load paths and tissues (not metals) are expanded in the anatomy chapter.
All-day herbivory -- fruit in western forests, more pith in some mountain diets. A CR ape is a slow calorie machine, not a hunter.
The how-it-works diagrams reduce that budget to a six-node loop.
Close social vision and smell. Intelligence here is ranked highest among the 24 for ape social learning -- still below a marketing superlative.
Control here means the animal steering itself -- not a vehicle ECU.
Ebola, bushmeat and logging. A mountain rebound is a different species. Lowest resilience in the atlas is a CR statement.
Resilience scores encode those limits relative to the other 23 types.
Licensed photographs of this species — heroes, eras and icons on one wall.
Same family, different scores — pick a duel.
Closest neighbours on the six atlas axes — speed, intelligence, range, resilience, culture and ecological role.
A marine bear whose seal-and-ice budget made Churchill, Knut and climate models into one public animal.
Overall 56 🐘The atlas type is the bush elephant -- an ecosystem engineer whose ivory ban (1989) and split from forest elephants still structure African conservation.
Overall 61 🦜Zygodactyl hookbills whose social brains, mimicry and nest-cavity needs collide with the cage trade.
Overall 58 🐧Flightless southern divers that turned wings into flippers and ice edges into commute routes.
Overall 56Asia largest cat whose subspecies map, 1973 Project Tiger and remaining 4,000-odd wild animals define a century of recovery arithmetic.
Overall 62 🦁A social pantherine whose prides, Gir relic and 2015 Cecil killing still structure African conservation politics.
Overall 66 🐘The atlas type is the bush elephant -- an ecosystem engineer whose ivory ban (1989) and split from forest elephants still structure African conservation.
Overall 61 🐺A Holarctic pack hunter whose 1995 Yellowstone return and older Leopold ethics still structure predator politics.
Overall 78 🐼A bamboo specialist whose WWF logo, Wolong quake and 2016 IUCN downlist from EN to VU made a recovery into a brand.
Overall 41 🐻A marine bear whose seal-and-ice budget made Churchill, Knut and climate models into one public animal.
Overall 56 🐋The largest animal whose 1966 IWC protection, 1982 moratorium and still-thin Antarctic recovery define a hunted giant.
Overall 65