Talk:Gorilla

Pretty bad wiki read

Just trying to learn about family structure and this article didn’t really help? Is a silverback the boss of a or he’s group? Can we get some real structure information here please? 203.220.169.52 (talk) 12:30, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Heaviest gorilla entry seems incomplete.

I was surprised to see a vague "Males in captivity can be overweight and reach weights up to 310 kg (683 lb)" entry for the largest captive gorilla. Is there a reason that Phil isn't cited as the heaviest known captive gorilla? Reportedly he weighed 390 kg (860 lbs). I don't want to overstep and add this if there's a reason it hasn't been added. https://alexaanswers.amazon.com/question/07jIcV67Q3PoFUMSLf57zl 174.249.134.117 (talk) 03:48, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Omnivore?

Despite gorilla possess sharp fangs like carnivores, why gorillas are considered to be herbivores? Does someone knows that gorilla attack and eat humans?2404:8000:1027:85F6:1161:D2E3:C0E2:F420 (talk) 10:41, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Gorilla#Diet_and_foraging answers your question. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Are cows omnivores? rabbits? or are they herbivores? They both eat meat occasionally. I suggest the revert silliness cease and we accept that just as carnivores sometimes eat plants, herbivores sometimes eat animals. Greglocock (talk) 23:13, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

difference is the fact gorillas actively do eat insects, with some specific subspecies having a diet of nearly 50-50, this makes them omnivores HCPM (talk) 17:55, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Even if that 50/50 claim is true (which I strongly doubt - citations?), the genus as a whole is herbivorous. Stop messing with the descriptor.. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:36, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

• @HCPM: you are missing the point. We will not describe the genus as "omnivorous" unless that is the predominant description used in the field. That is something you cannot claim nor demonstrate because it is simply not the case, individual case studies of individaul populations of individual species notwithstanding. You are welcome to put this material into the relevant section, but you need a much stronger case to make changes to the lede summary. And to be quite clear - further changes from the existing version without a consensus arrived at here will constitute edit warring. Please don't. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:59, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  did you really look at the sources? and the fact they are talking about different types of gorillas? also the fact that them eating insects is already in the wikipedia article isnt a good look now is it? so your telling me gorrilas eat insects as part of a normal diet, they eat insects when they are grooming

  but they are somehow not omnivores? you asked for sources i provided them, infact ive been the only side in this to provide sources, you have provided 0 sources, the whole "long standing" cannot be used for this, there was a long standing believe that birds were not dinosaurs, there was a long standing belief that the sun orbited the earth, it does not

  Perhaps YOU can find some evidence after lets say 2005? past 20 years? surely if you are so in the right you can provide atleast one source if someone who is apparently wrong can provide 3 sources from trust worthy places, also "mainly vegetarian diet" means its omnivorous too so yea.. goodluck with that

  you are breaking the rules not me, this article is contradictory. HCPM (talk) 19:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Alright, to hammer a bit of a plug into these fuming accusations, let's do something that is a fundamentally flawed approach but apparently dear to your heart; and make a plain citation count.

"gorillas are herbivores / herbivorous" - 31 hits / 25 hits

"gorillas are frugivores / frugivorous" - 4 hits / 6 hits

"gorillas are folivores / folivorous" - 22 hits / 10 hits

"gorillas are insectivores / insectivorous" - 0 hits / 0 hits

"gorillas are omnivores / omnivorous" - 1 hit / 1 hit

I rest my case. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:20, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

did you uhm.. think of looking at them before posting that? children picture books? outdated infomation? you rest your case because a CHILDRENS book say they are herbivores? the article says they are eat insects, if they are herbivores they would not be eating insects, so this wikpedia article is contradictory. why do you defend it so much?

oh and im really sorry to break this to you but them being frugivores and folivores doesnt mean they are herbivores, frugivore for example just means the diet is mostly fruit... frugivore doesnt mean the entire diet is fruit, frugivore/folivore/insectivores are not the same as carnivore/omnivore/herbivore for the most part, lets take the Genus Tristiidon for example, they are frugivores however the diet is still supplemented with insects

oh and also the diet of a gorilla highly depends on where it lives.. but that means they can digest it all eitherway and its outside factors that dictate the exact meals they eat, they can eat both insects and veg with no negative effects, this makes them omnivores, either dont say what they eat on this page as it changes for every locality of gorilla or say they are omnivorous HCPM (talk) 19:33, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Once more, and only once more, slowly: we follow predominant usage in the field. Predominant usage is to describe the genus as a whole as herbivorous. Your interpretation of what the term should be has no bearing on the matter. Please review WP:SYNTH. (And please use the odd full stop and capital letter, I'm getting vertigo here). --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

These are not my interpretation its what they are. Gorillas depending on the specific sub species are either Folivores or Frugivores.. that does not make them Herbivores, ironically enough you are breaking the rules too by seemingly implying the fact that them being frugivores makes them herbivores.

it does not. they are hominids, all hominids evolved to be omnivorous, Chimps, Humans, Orangutangs and Gorillas can all eat insects with 0 impact, they have evolutionary traits of carnivores and herbivores which makes them omnivores, also in what field? "in the field" isnt an excuse.

like tell me explicitly way these are not omnivores like the other 3 main Hominids, what adaption/evolution do they lack compared to those 3 which makes them exclusively herbivores? HCPM (talk) 20:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

It is not our job to look at their behavior and label it. It is our job to report what has been written in scientific journals documenting the behavior, and how that behavior is reported. As Elmidae has reported above, the vast majority of the descriptions of the behavior is as an herbivore or foliovore. For us to call the behavior something else is WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. Now, you've made your inquiry, and you've been given your answer. Please drop the stick. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

okay so a few points as your disagreeing with the sources the other guy brought up with is starting to get rather funny

no they are not folivores, a specific subspecies or 2 were folivores, i believe the mountain gorilla was one of them, the rest are frugivores, and this has all been said in all those sources posted previously

for the possibly third time now, frugivores and folivores ARE NOT HERBIVORES, this isn't labelling behaviour, you 2 apparently dont know what the term frugivore and folivore means, ive not been given an answer, im not interpreting it and im not labelling it myself, i am only using scientific definitions which are used in the sources its rather obvious that you do not know the differences between herbivore, folivore and frugivore and if thats the case you shouldnt be speaking on this subject

the wikipedia page is being hypocritical, it says on this wikipedia page that they eat insects, either call them omnivores, remove the part that calls them herbivores or remove the bit that say they eat insects because otherwise its hypocritical

also i wouldnt do the latter of the 3 as its very well proven HCPM (talk) 20:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Koko could not use sign language.

Sorry but this has been debunkened numerous times, repeating the falsehood under 'Intelligence' is embarrassing, could someone remove this claim? 185.104.136.54 (talk) 13:37, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

No. See Koko (gorilla). - UtherSRG (talk) 13:41, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

You've linked to her Wikipedia page as evidence of ability, not sure how to break it to you... But Wikipedia isn't a source. 2A00:23C4:2292:DF01:FD02:6213:8517:5E1B (talk) 19:13, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

See the numerous sources there that say she learned sign language. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

See the other sources that dispute this. It's disputed. Admittedly, the half that say she could understand sign language are wrong, but still disputed. Therefore it shouldn't be referred to as fact on the main page for her species. 2A00:23C4:2292:DF01:FD02:6213:8517:5E1B (talk) 20:44, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Disputed is not the same as debunked. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:22, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Oldest gorilla

See: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2024/4/a-day-in-the-life-of-the-worlds-oldest-gorilla-fatou-aged-67-768835 Pieter53 (talk) 16:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 September 2024

Failed verification for Reference #[14]: "Prince-Hughes, D. (1987). Songs of the gorilla nation. Harmony. p. 66. ISBN 978-1400050581." Source was published in 2004 and p. 66 does not contain relevant information. RobinIsadorable (talk) 02:07, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done Added failed verification template, thanks for pointing this out. Jamedeus (talk) 07:31, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

What is the justification for removing the name of an author?

User:UtherSRG "We don't need to know" is not a good reason. Doug Weller talk 17:20, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

That's another way to say it isn't a notable fact for this article. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:57, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Trying to figure this out. You weren’t bothered about the text until I actually did the work to find a better source and made the mortal sin of not just finding a better source but replaced “a writer” with the writer’s name. Doug Weller talk 20:12, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

In this specific case, I think we actually do want the name stated, since this is a second-level quote. That is, we are summarizing Heuvelmans saying "Radermacher says". In the interest of stating precisely what our cited sources say (that is, Heuvelmans), providing the name seems more appropriate than leaving it out. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:05, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Singing and flatulence

No information about their singing and constant farting? They are kinda famous for it. and Polygnotus (talk) 03:43, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

For the singing and humming we can use https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144197 Polygnotus (talk) 03:51, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

@Elmidae: What do you think? Polygnotus (talk) 06:21, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Hmm. Not very impressed by the material on farting, to be honest, and the study covering singing actually makes the point that gorillas use less of the relevant types of vocalization than other great apes. I wouldn't remove this from the article if it was in there, but I guess I wouldn't go out of my way to include it either. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:12, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

I haven't found a usable source for the flatulence yet, but it is not unlikely that one exists because gorilla plant digestion appears to be superior to ours. I'll look for more sources. Polygnotus (talk) 17:04, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

"next closest living relative to humans after chimpanzees."

I apologize that this bothers me, but in my opinion, the final sentence of the first paragraph of the intro is factually incorrect as written. The link on "chimpanzees" correctly links to Pan (genus), the two living relatives closest to humans. An edit without an account was removed, where I expanded the linked text to "chimpanzees and bonobos." as "unconstructive." To save byte size, "Pan" could be used, but would make the article less accessible. It may have been automatically flagged as unprofessional editing, because I expanded text within a link, which might be a rookie mistake but is accurate here. Anyway, that's my case. If the edit is still considered unconstructive, please delete this post and I won't be annoying about it. Solir the soldier (talk) 21:02, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 May 2026

I request for where it says "chimpanzees (genus Pan)" to be changed to "chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan)", since bonobos belong to Pan (genus) too. ~2026-27830-45 (talk) 18:26, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: "Chimpanees" refers to both species when used in a genus-level context. UtherSRG (talk) 19:36, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

No, Pan is the genus, but chimpanzees and bonobos are different species. ~2026-27830-45 (talk) 20:25, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Chimpanzees and bonobos are different species. Calling both species "chimpanzees" causes erasure to bonobos. ~2026-27830-45 (talk) 20:36, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

both species are more commonly referred to collectively using the generalized term chimpanzees (Pan (genus)) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:09, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

But "chimpanzees (genus Pan)" sounds like chimpanzees are the only Pan apes. ~2026-28068-81 (talk) 12:16, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 May 2026

I request for where it says "chimpanzees (genus Pan, two species)" to be changed to "chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan, two species)" since the wording makes it sound as if chimps are the only Pan apes. ~2026-30072-12 (talk) 19:06, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: Per the response to your previous edit request concerning this. Day Creature (talk) 22:13, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

I wasn't satisfied with that answer. ~2026-30391-25 (talk) 11:57, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Might I suggest a read of WP:Dropthestick. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:56, 20 May 2026 (UTC)