Every gorilla is a stack of tissues that must agree under season, prey and human pressure.
Meters below repeat the six atlas scores as gauges; they are relative marks, not laboratory certificates.
Systems
Support and integument
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.
Feeding apparatus
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 feeding kit sets the ecological-role score relative to the other 23 types.
Respiration and circulation
Gas exchange and blood flow are tuned to the gorilla energy budget -- dive, hover, sprint or bulk browse -- not to a generic vertebrate template.
Senses and neural control
Close social vision and smell. Intelligence here is ranked highest among the 24 for ape social learning -- still below a marketing superlative.
Reproduction and ontogeny
Replacement rate is the hidden resilience number. Ebola, bushmeat and logging. A mountain rebound is a different species. Lowest resilience in the atlas is a CR statement.
Thermoregulation and salt/water
Climate and osmoregulation bound where a gorilla can close its daily budget. Field sites in the English-speaking world still measure that envelope first.
Relative meters
Hotspots
Primary weapon or tool
The bill, teeth, trunk, pouch or talon that field guides name first -- and that trade or conflict usually targets.
Energy store
Fat, cache, crop or bamboo hours that decide whether a season closes.
Natal or breeding site
A redd, eyrie, den, anemone or ice lair -- often a single-point risk (Izumi, Natron, Gir).
Sensory organ
Close social vision and smell. Intelligence here is ranked highest among the 24 for ape social learning -- still below a marketing superlative.
Human interface
Hunt, tourism, film or quota -- the surface where gorilla biology meets English-language law.
Tissues & materials
Keratin and integument
Feathers, fur, baleen or skin plates -- tissues, not metals. Moult and wear are the maintenance cycle.
Bone and cartilage
Load paths for stoop, lunge, knuckle-walk or hover. Marrow and pneumatic bone differ by family.
Muscle and tendon
The expensive tissue that speed and intelligence scores only hint at.
Fat, oil and glycogen
Stores that migration, fast and lactation spend. A market for those stores (oil, ivory, fin) is a historical threat.
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