The Great Apes

[The Panther]

(02-17-2020, 09:20 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(02-12-2020, 02:16 PM)The Panther Wrote: Have you seen my reply to you right before Spalea's post? If so I hope it made things clearer.

Yes I saw it, and no they are not clear. I am not convinced at all about the size of those male gorillas. If there is something that I have learn is that we need solid evidence to state things and in this moment there is no evidence of the size and weight of those male gorillas. An "eye" estimation is not valid at all, I have saw it so many times in great cats that I can apply the same situation to these great apes.

Until someone can actually weight those animals and prove that those gorillas are at least over 230 kg, the figure of 180-190 kg on average and up to 219 kg from the wild is still valid, anything else is speculation.

@GuateGojira this is quite a long read, so forgive me. 
I never once said my estimates were completely valid, I simply highlighted the potential weight range of the absolute biggest Eastern gorillas from the comparisons, so this has nothing to do with the average young males nor did I claim to know their exact weights either. Your opinion is based solely on a small sample, so why should it be unlikely for Eastern gorillas to surpass that? There is no definitive proof that 219 or 220 kg (482 or 485 lbs) is the absolute biggest attainable weight, it's only the biggest weight on a small sample, which is still impressive. So I know those weights are valid, but where's the proof that it ends there? How many exceptionally large males like Guhonda did they weigh? That's what I'm really interested in. 

In my comparisons with Guhonda specifically, I highlighted how similar in build he was to the 296 kg (652 lbs) Samson, so I estimated the absolute biggest males to possibly be within 45 kg (100 lbs) of Samson's weight, which is still a substantial difference. I could've easily looked at their similarities and claim they were only 5 to10 kg in difference (11 to 22 lbs), but I knew that was unrealistic and acknowledged that Samson was still substantially flabbier despite their similar body type. Other than the biggest captive males like Samson, I also compared with a male who's said to weigh 190 kg (418 lbs) called Shabani, and I noticed how males like Guhonda were significantly bulkier than him despite his size. We could talk about belly gas all day, but gas only adds some bloating, so the majority of that great bulk is most likely their natural size, unless there's scientific proof otherwise. 

I estimated that silverback Eastern gorillas could possibly gain up to 100 kg (220 lbs) of weight from the age of 13 to 35+ (over 22 years), which makes a lot of sense when you think of their mostly relaxed and relatively sedentary lifestyle, where they spend hours foraging all day. Males are said to eat up to 34 kg (75 lbs) of vegetation daily, so wouldn't it make sense for them to gain significant amounts of weight after 20+ years of this habit? Like I said before, there are gluttonous humans that can gain more than 100 kg in less than 10 years, other large herbivores can gain more than that in a short amount of time too. So why should it be impossible for the very well fed Eastern gorillas to gain up to 100 kg in over 20 years? This is a long time, so unless there's a scientific reason as to why it can't happen, then I don't see why we should completely dismiss these possibilities, which is my main point. Reply