What would you do if you were approached by a silverback mountain gorilla? Watch the amazing footage of this close encounter.

This story appears in the January 1970 issue of National Geographic magazine. For the past three years I have spent most of my days with wild mountain gorillas. Their home, and mine, has been the ...

Mountain gorillas - an endangered species - survive in only two regions in the world: the Virunga Massif (a chain of volcanoes in East Africa) and Uganda's Bwindi ...

My farewell handshake with Peanuts came after more than three years of study of the mountain gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei), largest of the great apes. The animal is already classified by ...

Sadly we may also be their biggest threat. People have been pushing into the mountain gorilla’s forests in central Africa for decades – now there are only about 1000 of these splendid beasts in the ...

A chimpanzee at San Francisco Zoo and Gardens who was said to be one of the oldest in the United States died this week at the age of 55.  The chimpanzee, ...

Venture into Virunga National Park with Smithsonian writer Paul Raffaele as he examines the threats facing mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Explore Subscribe Newsletters ...

Over the last two months, 1,500 hectares of prime mountain gorilla habitat have been cleared by illegal settlers in Virunga National Park, a World Heritage Site. Gland, Switzerland – Over the last two ...

I recently had the rare opportunity to “meet” some mountain gorillas, who share 98.4% of their DNA with humans. It is estimated that there are fewer than 1,150 gorillas found in the wild today.

Mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) are a subspecies of the eastern gorilla. The older males of the species develop a silver streak of hair across their backs and are known as silverbacks.