Gorilla Vs Chimpanzee: Gorillas and chimpanzees are some of the most popular primates in the world, and for some reason some people mistake them.
Gorillas and chimpanzees are both great apes, however they are very different from each other with distinctive features and behaviours among others to differentiate them from. Gorillas are larger in size, usually three times larger. Unlike chimpanzees, an adult male gorillas (known as a silverback) has coarse dark that becomes silver as they age. This is not the same to chimpanzees.
By looking at ears of these two primates, you will also see the difference between them as gorillas have small ears near the rear of their skull. Chimpanzees on the other hand have large ears on the sides of their heads, similar to humans.

In this blog we address and highlight the differences between gorilla and chimpanzee.
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Classification
Gorillas belong to the genus Gorilla, there are two species that is the Western Gorilla and the Eastern Gorilla. Each gorilla species contains two further sub-species. The Eastern species consists of Mountain Gorillas and the Eastern Lowland Gorillas, whereas the Western Gorillas consists of the Cross River Gorillas and the Western Lowland Gorillas.
The most famous subspecies of gorillas are the mountain gorillas which only live in the forested highlands of three East African regions – Rwanda, Uganda and DR.Congo.
Chimpanzees belong to the genus Pan. There are two species that is the Common Chimpanzees *Pan Troglodytes) and the Bonobo (Pan paniscus).
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Build and Size
Gorillas and chimpanzees have a different build which is one of the major difference between the two.
Gorillas are the largest living primates on Earth, they are significantly larger and heavier than chimpanzees. They can reach up to 1.8 metres (6 feet) in height and weight up to 270 kilograms, their arms spans up to 2.6 meters. They have a robust build with a broad chest and shoulders, large head and prominent bony crests on the top and back of their skulls, giving their heads a more conical shape.
Chimpanzees can weight up to 70 kg with a standing height of up to 4 ft., they have a more slender build and lack the prominent sagittal crest and associated head and neck musculature of the gorillas. In comparison to the wide shoulders of the ordinary gorillas, the average chimpanzee is significantly slimmer.
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Ears
You can tell the difference between chimpanzees and gorillas based on their ears.
Gorillas have small ears located toward the back of the skull
Chimpanzees have large ears on the sides of head which is much similar to humans.
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Habitat
The habitat is another key difference between gorillas and chimpanzees.
Gorillas are mainly ground-dwelling apes and only inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. Their habitat covers a small percentage of Africa and thrive in a wide range of elevations. Mountain gorillas inhabit the Albertine Rift Montane rainforests of the Virunga Volcanoes and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, ranging in altitude from 2,200 to 4,300 m.
Lowland gorillas live in the dense forests and lowland swamps as low as sea level, with western lowland gorillas living in Central West Africa and eastern lowland gorillas living in Congo (DRC).
Chimpanzees are highly adaptable species capable of living in many habitats, including dry savannah, evergreen rainforest, montane forest, swamp forest, and dry woodland-savannah mosaic. They spend most of their time high up in trees compared to mountain gorillas.

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Social Behaviour
Gorillas and chimpanzees have unique social and behaviour patterns.
Gorillas live in tight-knit family units of usually 5 to 10 individuals, but sometimes 2 or more than 50. A family of these gentle giants is led by one adult male referred to as a Silverback, with a harem of multiple adult females and their offsprings. A silverback is typically more than 12 years of age and is named for the distinctive patch of silver hair on his back, which comes with maturity.
Chimpanzees love in complex social structures, they form communities of up to 150 individuals and live in a strict male-dominated hierarchy. Unlike a family of gorillas which always stay together, chimpanzee communities are more fluid. Often they breakup into sub-groups which spend time apart to reunite later. Always there seems to be something going on in a chimpanzee community, an alpha male trying to take over, a youngster throwing a tantrum, males patrolling their territory and, occasionally, a hunt.
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Diet and Feeding
Both chimpanzees and gorillas are omnivores, however they have different diets.
Gorilla’s diet, 85% of it is made up of leaves, shoots and stems, but gorillas can also eat larvae, snails, ants, roots, barks and rotting wood which is a good source of sodium/salt.
Chimpanzees generally prefer fruits and plants, they have a varied diet that also includes insects, eggs, nuts, and hundreds of other things. They relish meat, and have been known to hunt, kill and eat monkeys, small antelopes, and even tortoises, which they slam against trees to break their dard shells open.
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Communication
Gorillas communicate through vocalizations, body language, and facial expressions. They use chest beating and vocalizations for various purposes. 25 distinct gorilla vocalizations are recognised. Many of them are used mainly for family communication within dense vegetation.
While trekking, sounds such as grunts and barks are often heard indicating the whereabouts of individual family members. Deep, rumbling belches implies contentment and are heard often during resting and feeding time. Often gorillas beat their chests when perceive a danger or threat, when the chest beating happens, it implies that the gorilla is charging at a human or any rival.
Chimpanzees use facial expressions, postures, and sounds to communicate with each other. When frightened, a “full closed grin” causes nearby individuals to be fearful too. Chimpanzees also display an open-mouthed grin, with it is in a mode of aggression, a chimpanzee can swaggers bipedally as it waves its arms in an attempt to exaggerate its size.
While traveling, chimpanzees keep in contact by beating their hands against the trunks of large trees, an act that is known as “drumming”. Vocalizations are also vital in chimpanzee communication, the most common call is the “Pant-hoot”, which often signals social rank and bond along with keeping grounds together.
Chimpanzees pant-hoots mainly consists of four parts, it begins with soft “hoos”, the introduction. It then gets louder and louder, the build-up. It climaxes into screams and sometimes barks. These die down back to soft “hoos” during the letdown phase as the call ends.

Strength
Gorillas are far stronger than chimpanzees thanks to their massive size, an average gorilla is approximately 4-6 times stronger than a chimpanzee.
Chimpanzees are also very strong, some sources say they are many times stronger than a man but this is still debatable. Their advantage over humans is rather their large amount of fast-twitch muscle fibres.
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Aggressiveness
In terms of aggressiveness,
Chimpanzees often hunt other animals for food, engage in organised assaults against other chimpanzees and generally exhibit more violent tendencies than the average gorilla.
Silverback – male gorillas are the strongest among gorillas, they might fight each other and males might engage in dominance displays, but otherwise gorillas are more peaceful and docile in nature.
If attacked by a chimpanzee or any other animal even humans, the gorillas will surely fight back.
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Intelligence
Both chimpanzees are gorillas are intelligent animals but when you compare the IQ of gorillas Vs chimpanzees, chimpanzees have a higher IQ thus more intelligent. It is their intelligence that makes them more closely related to humans as well as bigger brains compared to their body weight.
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Lifespan
A gorilla’s lifespan is normally between 35 and 40 years, although gorillas in captivity may live for 50 years or more. The oldest known gorillas, Colo a western gorillas at the Colobus Zoo and Aquarium was died at the age of 60 years.
A Chimpanzee’s lifespan is relatively short for those in wild and it is normally less than 15 years, although the chimpanzees that reach 12 years may live an additional 15 years. On rare occasions, wild chimpanzees may live nearly 60 years, those in captivity ten to live longer than most wild ones with median lifespans of 31.7 year for males and 38.7 years for females. The oldest known male captive chimpanzee to have been documented lived to 66 years, and the oldest female, Little Mama, was over 70 years old.
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Conservation Status
Chimpanzees are highly endangered species. As of 2023, between 170,000 and 300,000 chimpanzees are believed to exist in the wild, a decrease from over 1,000,000 chimpanzees in the early 1900s. Their populations are rapidly declining due to habitat loss, poaching, and disease.
Gorilla Vs Chimpanzee: All species of gorillas are listed as endangered or critically endangered. About 316,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to be in existence in the world, 4,000 in Zoos. Thanks to conservation, eastern lowland gorilla have a population of few than 5,000 in the wild and 24 in zoos. Mountain gorillas are the most critically endangered, with an estimated population of around 1,063 ;eft in the wild and none in zoos.