A team of genetic scientists, co-led by Dr Chris Tyler-Smith of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Dr Aylwyn Scally of the University of Cambridge, UK, has sequenced the whole genome of the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) and compared it with the genomes of three other Gorilla subspecies – the western lowland gorilla (G. […]
Tag: mountain gorilla
In Photos: “Drunk” mountain gorilla punches wildlife photographer
Photographer Christophe Courteau was taking snaps of mountain gorillas in the forest of Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park when the group’s 250 kg alpha male charged at him out of the blue. Amazingly, Courteau managed to get in one last shot of the incoming fist before the punch connected. Caters News Agency reports that the very […]
New photos offer rare glimpse of the mysterious Saharan Cheetah
The Saharan cheetah is one of the world’s rarest big cats. At face value, that isn’t all that surprising. Deserts are harsh environments that support few large herbivores, which means there are even fewer carnivores around. But if we’ve learned anything about ecology, it’s that healthy ecosystems require the survival of apex predators; they keep […]
RSPB uses drone to keep watch on Britain’s vulnerable birds
Military technology used to hunt down insurgents in Afghanistan has been taken up by Britain’s biggest nature conservation charity to safeguard some of the country’s rarest birds. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is using a remotely controlled drone to spy on the nests of endangered breeds and monitor the progress of […]
African gorillas are under threat from oil survey
Controversial aerial surveys aimed at finding oil under Africa’s oldest national park have been started by a British company amid fears that drilling in the area could seriously threaten the world’s last sanctuary for mountain gorillas. The moves towards possible oil exploration in Virunga national park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have been condemned […]