Social Behavior among the Gorillas. Gorillas live in family groups called troops. Troops tend to be made of one adult male or silverback, multiple adult females and their offspring.
However, multiple-male troops also exist.
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.
Silverbacks also have large canine teeth that also come with maturity. Both males and females tend to emigrate from their natal groups.
For mountain gorillas, females disperse from their natal troops more than males. Mountain gorillas and western lowland gorillas also commonly transfer to second new groups.
Mature males also tend to leave their groups and establish their own troops by attracting emigrating females.
However, male mountain gorillas sometimes stay in their natal troops and become subordinate to the silverback. If the silverback dies, these males may be able to become dominant or mate with the females. This behavior has not been observed in eastern lowland gorillas.
In a single male group, when the silverback dies, the females and their offspring disperse and find a new troop. Without a silverback to protect them, the infants will likely fall victim to infanticide.
Joining a new group is likely to be a tactic against this.
However, while gorilla troops usually disband after the silverback dies, female eastern lowlands gorillas and their offspring have been recorded staying together until a new silverback transfers into the group. This likely serves as protection from leopards.
The silverback is the center of the troop’s attention, making all the decisions, mediating conflicts, determining the movements of the group, leading the others to feeding sites, and taking responsibility for the safety and well-being of the troop.
Younger males subordinate to the silverback, known as blackbacks, may serve as backup protection. Blackbacks are aged between 8 and 12 years and lack the silver back hair.
The bond that a silverback has with his females forms the core of gorilla social life. Bonds between them are maintained by grooming and staying close together. Females form strong relationships with males to gain mating opportunities and protection from predators and infanticidal outside males.
However, aggressive behaviors between males and females do occur, but rarely lead to serious injury. Relationships between females may vary.
Maternally related females in a troop tend to be friendly towards each other and associate closely. Otherwise, females have few friendly encounters and commonly act aggressively towards each other.
Females may fight for social access to males and a male may intervene. Male gorillas have weak social bonds, particularly in multiple-male groups with apparent dominance hierarchies and strong competition for mates. Males in all-male groups, though, tend to have friendly interactions and socialise through play, grooming, and staying together, and occasionally they even engage in homosexual interactions. Severe aggression is rare in stable groups, but when two mountain gorilla groups meet, the two silverbacks can sometimes engage in a fight to the death, using their canines to cause deep, gaping injuries.
Like humans, gorillas are too very social and bond to one another; they do share feelings, and care for one another. During your gorilla safari, you will be able to witness the kind of bond and relationship which do exist among the gorillas.
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