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Fact: Gorillas in the wild rarely drink water. This is because the plans they eat have so much moisture in them; sometimes almost half the plant is water. [45]
Fact: Haumania danckelmaniana, is an extremely thorny vine sometime called the bushwhacker's torment. Strangely enough, it is also one of gorillas' favorite foods. [46]
Just Hanging Around
Image Source: schacon/ License under Creative Commons 2.0.
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Fact: A zoonosis is a disease that crosses over from an animal to man. [47] Ebola, bubonic plague, yellow fever, monkeypox, bovine tuberculosis, lime disease, Marburg, West Nile fever, most strains of influenza, rabies, and hantavirus are all zoonoses. [48]
Fact: However, disease can also go the other way. When a disease crosses over from man to an animal, the infection is labeled anthropozoonotic. Because gorillas are primates and genetically very close to humans, human diseases such as measles, polio, scabies, influenza, tuberculosis, and other human diseases are a threat to gorillas. [49]
Fact: In early February 1996, Along the upper Ivindo River in northeastern Gabon a small village called Mayibout II was struck with the first Ebola outbreak in Africa. [50] At the time natives reported something bizarre: 13 gorillas, all dead, lying in the forest. It is thought that these animals had contracted Ebola either from human contact, contact with other primates, or contact with the host reservoir, which turned out to be three species of fruit bats. [51] [52]
The Thinking Gorilla
Image Source: hjallig/ License under Creative Commons 2.0.
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Fact: In 2002 gorillas in an area in northwestern Congo were hit hard by Ebola. Researchers found that within a few months, 91 percent of the gorillas they were studying died or vanished -- presumed dead. Some of the gorilla carcasses tested positive for Ebola. When the researchers published their findings they estimated that 5,000 gorillas had been killed by Ebola in the Mambili drainage, and Lossi (a national park and a gorilla sanctuary). [53]
