AnAge entry for Gorilla gorilla
Classification (HAGRID: 03215)
- Taxonomy
-
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia (Taxon entry)
Order: Primates (Taxon entry)
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Gorilla
- Species
- Gorilla gorilla
- Common name
- Gorilla
Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits
- Maximum longevity
- 55.4 years (captivity)
- Source
- ref. 671
- Sample size
- Large
- Data quality
- High
- Observations
Little is known about ageing in gorillas. One wild born female was about 53.5 years when she died in captivity [0671]. The record longevity, however, appears to belong to a female called "Jenny" that died at Dallas Zoo from an inoperable stomach tumour at 55.4 years of age. She showed early signs of cataracts.
Life history traits (averages)
- Female sexual maturity
- 2,829 days
- Male sexual maturity
- 4,015 days
- Gestation
- 256 days
- Weaning
- 834 days
- Litter size
- 1 (viviparous)
- Litters per year
- 0.3
- Inter-litter interval
- 1,397 days
- Weight at birth
- 2,061 g
- Weight at weaning
- 12,595 g
- Adult weight
- 139,842 g
- Postnatal growth rate
- 0.0008 days-1 (from Gompertz function)
- Maximum longevity residual
- 185%
Metabolism
- Typical body temperature
- 309ºK or 35.5ºC or 95.9ºF
- Basal metabolic rate
- Not yet available
References
- [1026] Brown and Finnegan (2007), Resting heart rate and tympanic temperature in operant conditioned western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), PubMed
- [0715] Lorenzini et al. (2005), Cellular replicative capacity correlates primarily with species body mass not longevity, PubMed
- [0671] Richard Weigl (2005), Longevity of Mammals in Captivity; from the Living Collections of the World
- [0341] Atsalis et al. (2004), Sexual behavior and hormonal estrus cycles in captive aged lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), PubMed
- [0610] Ernest (2003), Life history characteristics of placental non-volant mammals
- [0681] Peter Kappeler and Michael Pereira (2003), Primate Life Histories and Socioecology
- [0467] Lindenfors (2002), Sexually antagonistic selection on primate size
- [0342] Kimura et al. (2001), Senile plaques in an aged western lowland gorilla, PubMed
- [0434] Ronald Nowak (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World
- [0455] Virginia Hayssen et al. (1993), Asdell's Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction: A Compendium of Species-Specific Data
- [0680] Wootton (1987), The effects of body mass, phylogeny, habitat, and trophic level on mammalian age at first reproduction
- [0679] Harvey and Clutton-Brock (1985), Life-history variation in primates
- [0731] Zullinger et al. (1984), Fitting sigmoid equations to mammalian growth curves
- [0059] Tolmasoff et al. (1980), Superoxide dismutase: correlation with life-span and specific metabolic rate in primate species, PubMed
- [0436] Cutler (1979), Evolution of human longevity: a critical overview, PubMed
External Resources
- Integrated Taxonomic Information System
- ITIS 573080
- Animal Diversity Web
- ADW account
- Encyclopaedia of Life
- Search EOL
- Genome Project
- Search NCBI
- Entrez
- Search all databases or Entrez Taxonomy search
- Ageing Literature
- Search Google Scholar or Search PubMed or Search Scirus
- Images
- Google Image search
- Internet
- Search Google