The Great Apes

[Shadow]

(12-18-2019, 01:42 AM)The Panther Wrote:

(12-18-2019, 12:10 AM)Shadow Wrote:

(12-17-2019, 11:18 PM)The Panther Wrote:

(12-17-2019, 09:48 PM)Shadow Wrote:

(12-17-2019, 06:09 PM)The Panther Wrote:

(12-15-2019, 03:52 PM)Shadow Wrote:

(12-09-2019, 01:13 AM)Sully Wrote: On #383 That's forced perspective to the extreme to be fair, no way to tell if he's actually bigger than normal or not

Yes, that photo is typical example how some animal can be made to look like much bigger than it is in reality. When people keep in mind, that gorillas are in average around 170 cm tall when standing, it´s easy to notice when something is not right in the photo. But of course, when a woman stands 5-20 meters behind a sitting gorilla, gorilla looks like to be huge. Put there an average male brown bear next to that gorilla and suddenly that "huge" gorilla looks like a child :)

@Shadow @Sully
The silverback in question Isabukuru was actually a pretty big male, in fact, people have mentioned his exceptional size for his young age. He unfortunately died at only 24 years old.
This is him from a different angle. He was 22 years old here. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://gorillasafarisinuganda.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-tribute-to-silverback-isabukuru.html?mhim.
"Even as a young black back, he was famous because of his gigantic size despite his tender age and very popular among females which he broke away with from Cantsbee's group in 2007, and started his own group at just the age of 14 taking three females with him."
Last paragraph in the link.

It can be big what comes to gorillas, but that photo didn´t give realistic perspective. Typical photo exaggerating size of an animal. As I said, if there would be a brown bear right next to that gorilla, it would look more like child looks like right next to adult. 160-200 kg isn´t same as 300-400 kg. Just like some 50-60 kg woman 5-10 meters behind a silverback gorilla looks to be even smaller than she is. That was my point, not to say if that gorilla was small of big gorilla, when compared to other gorillas.

Yes, but no one even mentioned big 400 kg bears at all, it's a fact that he was a huge gorilla, and it's accepted by everyone who observed him throughout the years. No one here thinks 160-200 kg is the same as 300 kg or 400 kg, though I'm pretty sure he was a lot larger than 200 kg. Maybe the example Spalea used didn't do Justice to Isabukuru's great size, sure, but I just wanted to mention that he was indeed considered a very large male, especially for his age.

No, but it was for most people a random photo of a random gorilla and said, that huge gorilla. From that photo it wasn´t possible to know if that gorilla was average, big or huge. I pointed that out and also used bears as one example to remind what is reality. Many times silverback gorillas are in photos alone or with another gorilla(s). And they look massive. Of course an animal 160-200 kg is big. What comes to possible 250 kg gorillas, I do believe that some of the biggest ones can be when old and obese, but I don´t believe that it would be something we see in every photo. Even gorillas over 200 kg are usually considered as very big or exceptional individuals. There aren´t too many confirmed gorillas over 200 kg after all.

In many threads here have been said many times, from a random photo without anything good to compare with, it´s impossible to say how big some animal is. Any average gorilla can be made to look like a giant if that is wanted by the person taking photo. If it´s wanted to prove that some animal is really big or exceptional with a photo, then that photo should have something side by side with that animal. So many "huge" animals have been in reality normal sized, when more information have been found. We have had here many similar cases with photos of big cats.

I want to point out, that when some gorilla looks like huge, reality is with silverbacks 160-200 kg. And maybe in some rare cases more. And height in average, when standing somewhere around 170 cm, so a sitting gorilla isn´t taller than a woman standing. People who know animals and are objective of course know this, but there are always some people, who can be fooled. So it´s good to keep things realistic.

We've pretty much went over this before. There isn't enough information on all the populations of wild gorillas to conclude anything, but it's quite clear they vary greatly in size (mainly weight) depending on which population you look at. Eastern gorillas can greatly surpass Western gorillas in size, so 200 kg might be very large for your average Western gorilla population, but what says it's the same thing for Eastern gorillas? This is why I rely on comparisons like the ones I did before, because it at least gives me a good idea of a large gorilla's size range, which is very helpful when we have nothing to go on. So this is how I estimate, with comparisons. I think it's very dismissive to say anything over 200kg is rare, especially when there isn't enough information to go on, apart from small samples and measurements here and there. Who's to say that represents all populations.

I just say how I see it. I haven´t seen enough information to believe, that 200 kg would be something what gorillas would be all the time. I have seen only some possible cases in wild and that isn´t enough for me to make hasty conclusions, that it would happen all the time. If you believe that 200 kg is like nothing for gorillas, then we do disagree clearly.

It´s one thing to speculate and talk about possibilities, another to talk about confirmed and verified information. Multiple sources give for gorillas weight range 160-200 kg, when talking about males. Of course if you have some study giving different kind of figures, please post it here. New information is always welcome.

And when looking at main point in this. From photos we can´t give too good estimations, when there is nothing to compare with. Of course we can see if gorilla looks robust or obese and things like that. But when looking at photo of one gorilla, which is for instance known to be big and then looking a photo of another gorilla looking to be as big... it has to be remembered, that other one can be for instance shorter and much lighter in reality. And that height difference makes it look like to be as robust and big in photo. Photos are not good if wanting to prove something about size, when there is not something to compare with, which is there side by side. Reply