Western lowland gorilla (GORILLA GORILLA GORILLA) belongs to the same family HOMINIDAE as humans. The adult males may be about 2 m in height and over 200 kg in weight. Gorillas inhabit lowland tropical rainforests of Central Africa. They are terrestrial and very rarely some individuals feed in trees. Gorillas build platform nests to sleep at night, but sometimes on the ground and sometimes in trees. Nests are used for a single night. Gorillas are diurnal. Their diet consists of leaves, shoots, stems. They eat also roots, flowers and fruits. The also gather small insects from plants.

It is reported that group home range varies from 4 km2 to 25 km2. Food availability is the major determinant of the home range size and group migrations. Group size ranges from several to 30 individuals. Groups are very stable, with the dominant male (silverbacks) at the head and include some subadult males and subadult and adult females with their juveniles and infants.

Males that leave the group, wander alone for some time and then they form their own new group or join another. Females give birth every 4 years, usually to a single young. The age of sexual maturation is about 10 years in females and 15 in males. There were no gorillas in the collection of Moscow zoo for a long time. At last in 1998 we've received a pair of adult animals from Germany.