WHILE groups of mountain gorillas like a good fight when they run into each other, western gorilla groups often give each other a warm welcome. Now researchers think they know why.
Western gorilla society is difficult to study because they live in denser foliage than mountain gorillas, and are more easily surprised by human researchers. But recent studies show that they are much less aggressive than their mountain cousins, at least in interactions between groups. While 90 per cent of encounters between mountain gorilla groups result in threat displays or violence, this only happens around half the time among western…
