Pre-industrial emblem
24Heraldry, materia medica or first-fish law met the gorilla before film.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Speed30
Intelligence96
Range24
Resilience11
Cultural impact49
Ecological role61
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Why western gorilla as the type?
The taxonomy wiki is Western gorilla. Mountain gorillas are G. beringei, fewer, more filmed, and less CR. The atlas follows the listed type, not the movie.
Did Fossey study this type?
Karisoke watched mountain gorillas in Rwanda. The methods and the murder belong to that species; western gorillas have Mbeli Bai and different threats (Ebola, bushmeat).
What about Koko and language?
Francine Patterson project treated signs as words. Linguists remain split. The atlas files Koko as culture and a research programme, not as proof that wild western gorillas recite English.
Why the lowest resilience in the 24?
CR western gorillas plus Ebola, logging and hunt. Mountain gorilla rebound is real and is a different species card.
What is Mbeli Bai?
A forest clearing in Nouabale-Ndoki where western gorillas come for minerals -- a platform study that rarely makes a biopic.
Did Gorillas in the Mist help the type?
The 1988 film helped mountain gorilla tourism and the Fossey myth. Western lowland numbers kept falling on a different map.
IUCN: Critically Endangered
Gorilla culture is local: the same silhouette is a licence in one country and a logo in another.
Status bars are editorial -- they track how loudly this type spoke in English-language media and law, not a best-species score.
Status through time
Industrial take
70Canneries, ivory, longlines or shikar scaled the take.
Cinema and logo
41A film, book or NGO mark often outran the field paper.
Statute and listing
77ESA, CITES, IWC or national parks made the type a legal object.
Live-cam and tourism
31Streams, jeeps and auctions are the present tense of attention.
Portrayals
Schaller monograph1963
The pre-Fossey mountain book.
Fossey death news1985
A murder as a conservation origin.
Weaver film1988
The public gorilla.
Koko features1970s-2018
Signs as a talk-show science.
Ebola briefs2000s
A disease graph without a heroine.
Zoo silverbackongoing
Western lowland as a captive face.
Rituals
Bai platforms
Watchers log western groups in a clearing.
Karisoke anniversaries
A mountain camp remembered as if it were the type.
Koko birthday media
A lab calendar that outlived the ape.
Sayings
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