The standard physical characteristics of the average gorilla range from species to species, largely dependent on their adaptation to the living climates of each area.  In general however, the average male gorilla can expect a height somewhere in the range of 185cm.  For males, this equals about 5'6" upright and 4'6" in a normal "all four" stance.   The female, slightly smaller, can expect 150cm.  This averages 5'0" upright and 3'8" in a normal stance.  Their weight is proportional to their stock body size and strong muscular features.  Males weight in the neighborhood of 160kg or 300-500lbs, while a female tips the scales at 150-250lbs and 70-114kg.   Gorilla's are quadrupedal, that is they walk on all fours.  They keep the soles of their feet flat, like a human, to the ground and use their knuckles, hand in a fist, to walk.

     The color of a gorilla can range from black, blue-black or brown-gray fur.  Most are found with black leathery skin on their face, palms and chest.  Camaroon gorillas are also common for reddish hair.  Male gorillas develop a silver streak across their back and sometimes their hind as they age.   This streak is the basis for the term "silverback".  Gorillas can recognize each other by their faces and body shapes. Each gorilla has a unique nose print like a human's thumbprint.  Gorillas and humans share 97.7% of their DNA, and gorillas even have finger prints.

     Males also have apocrine glands in their armpits that emit a strong odor when the animal is under stress.

     Mountain Gorilla's or Gorilla gorilla beringei, are among the rarest of the gorilla line.   Mountain gorillas differ from other gorillas in having longer hair, larger jaws and teeth, smaller nose, and shorter arms.

     They are now only found in 285 square miles in the rain forests of Rwanda, Uganda and Zaire.  Mountain gorillas inhabit the montane cloud forest of the Virunga range. Occasionally they go into the Afro-Alpine meadows where temperatures are subfreezing at night and there is little suitable food to forage on.  At this time, many sites report less than 600 free-living mountain gorillas are in existence, of which zero are in captivity.

     While Mountain gorillas occasionally eat meat, they are primarily folivorous eating roots, leaves, stems, herbs, vines, shrubs, and bamboo. Their diet is supplemented by small amounts of bark, wood, roots, flowers, fruit, fungi, epithelium stripped from roots, galls and invertebrates.