The diet for gorillas is almost entirely plant-based: leaves, stems, shoots, roots, bark and fruit, with a small number of ants and termites. An adult silverback can eat around 18 to 30 kg of vegetation in a single day, and yet these powerful apes are among the gentlest animals you will ever meet in the forest.
Watching gorillas feed is one of the highlights of a gorilla trekking safari in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park. You will often find a family pulling down wild celery, peeling bamboo shoots or chewing on bark during your hour with them.
In this guide, our gorilla trekking team at Tulambule explains what gorillas eat, how the diet for gorillas differs between the four subspecies, how much they eat each day, whether they eat meat or bananas, and what this means for your own trek.
What Do Gorillas Eat? The Quick Answer
Gorillas are mainly herbivores. Here is what the diet for gorillas is made of in the wild:
- Leaves, stems and pith: the bulk of the diet, especially for mountain gorillas.
- Shoots: including young bamboo shoots in the rainy season.
- Fruit: a small part of the mountain gorilla diet, but a large part for lowland gorillas.
- Bark, roots and flowers: eaten when other foods are scarce.
- Decaying wood and soil: licked or chewed for minerals such as sodium.
- Insects: ants, termites and larvae, in small amounts.
Wild gorillas do not hunt, and they do not eat meat, fish or eggs as part of their normal diet.
Diet for Gorillas at a Glance
There are two gorilla species, the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and each one is split into two subspecies. Where a gorilla lives decides what it eats, so the diet for gorillas varies quite a lot from one subspecies to another.
| Subspecies | Main foods | Where they live |
| Mountain gorilla | Leaves, stems, pith, shoots; little fruit | Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo |
| Eastern lowland (Grauer's) gorilla | Leaves and pith, plus seasonal fruit | Eastern DR Congo |
| Western lowland gorilla | Fruit, leaves, aquatic plants, termites | Central and West Africa |
| Cross River gorilla | Fruit, with herbs and bark in the dry months | Nigeria and Cameroon border |
Mountain Gorilla Diet: What Do Mountain Gorillas Eat?
Mountain gorillas are the gorillas you can trek in Uganda and Rwanda, so this is the diet for gorillas you are most likely to see in person. In the Virunga volcanoes, leaves, shoots and stems make up around 86% of what they eat. Roots, flowers and bark make up most of the rest, and fruit is less than 2% of their diet.
Their favourite foods include wild celery, thistles, stinging nettles, bedstraw vines and the soft pith of giant herbs. In the rainy season, when young bamboo shoots appear on the slopes of Mgahinga, gorillas will travel to eat them in large amounts.
Location changes the diet for gorillas even within one subspecies. The gorillas of Bwindi eat more fruit than those in the Virungas, because Bwindi is lower and has more fruiting trees. Bwindi gorillas also chew decaying wood, which scientists believe gives them sodium, a mineral that is hard to find in their plant diet.
There are only around 1,000 mountain gorillas in the world, and Bwindi alone holds about half of them. The rest live in the Virunga Massif, shared by Mgahinga in Uganda, Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Virunga National Park in DR Congo. Thanks to strong protection and tourism, the subspecies was moved from Critically Endangered to Endangered in 2018.
Eastern Lowland Gorilla Diet
The eastern lowland gorilla, also called Grauer's gorilla, is the largest gorilla of all. Its diet is more varied than the mountain gorilla's and changes with the seasons. Leaves and pith are the everyday foods, but fruit can make up as much as a quarter of the diet when trees are fruiting.
Fruit is spread thinly through the forest, so this seasonal diet for gorillas in the lowlands means they often travel further each day than mountain gorillas do. They also eat ants and other insects.
The eastern lowland gorilla lives only in eastern DR Congo, mainly in Kahuzi-Biega and Maiko National Parks. It is Critically Endangered, and gorilla tourism in Congo is currently closed, so Uganda and Rwanda are where travellers go to see gorillas today.
Western Lowland Gorilla Diet
Of all the subspecies, the western lowland diet for gorillas relies most on fruit. Because ripe fruit is scattered across the forest, they cover more ground each day, often more than a kilometre.
They also eat leaves, bark and the stems of forest herbs. In some areas they wade into swampy forest clearings to feed on water plants, which are rich in minerals. Termites and ants are a regular snack.
Western lowland gorillas are the most numerous gorillas and the smallest of the four subspecies. They live in Cameroon, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Angola and DR Congo. They are also the gorillas you will see in almost every zoo, yet they remain Critically Endangered because of poaching and disease.
Cross River Gorilla Diet
The Cross River gorilla is the rarest great ape on earth, with only around 250 to 300 left. It lives in the forested hills on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon, at the headwaters of the Cross River.
For most of the year, the diet of Cross River gorillas is based on fruit. In the months when fruit is scarce, they switch to herbs on the forest floor, along with the bark and leaves of trees and climbing plants. This flexible diet for gorillas in such a small range is part of what keeps such a small population alive.
What Plants Make Up the Diet for Gorillas?
Across all four subspecies, the diet for gorillas includes more than 200 kinds of plants. Mountain gorillas in the Virungas alone use well over 100 plant species. Some of the most important are:
- Wild celery: a juicy favourite that grows in forest clearings.
- Stinging nettles: gorillas fold the leaves carefully to avoid the stings.
- Thistles and bedstraw vines: eaten in large handfuls.
- Bamboo shoots: a seasonal feast, especially in Mgahinga.
- Giant herbs and lobelias: eaten for their soft, watery pith.
- Wild fruits: such as figs and other forest fruits, especially in Bwindi and the lowlands.
- Bark and roots: chewed when other food is limited.
Gorillas also lick soil or eat clay from certain spots. This gives them minerals and may help settle their stomachs after eating plants that contain natural toxins.
Do Gorillas Eat Meat or Fish?
No. Gorillas do not hunt, and meat or fish is not part of their diet. Their large canine teeth are used for display and defence, and their powerful jaws are built to grind tough stems and bark.
Strictly speaking, gorillas are omnivores, because they eat insects such as ants and termites. Researchers have also found traces of small mammal DNA in a few western gorilla dung samples, but this may have come from contamination or accidental eating. There is no evidence that gorillas kill other animals for food.
How Much Do Gorillas Eat a Day?
A great deal. An adult silverback can eat around 18 to 30 kg (40 to 65 pounds) of vegetation a day, and adult females eat a little less. Because leaves are low in energy, a leafy diet for gorillas means they need to eat large amounts to fuel their huge bodies.
This is why feeding takes up so much of a gorilla's day. It is also why a mature silverback can weigh more than 160 kg, around twice the weight of an adult female.
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How Gorillas Feed: A Day in the Life
A gorilla's day follows a steady pattern. The family wakes soon after sunrise and starts feeding straight away. Around midday they rest, groom one another and let the young ones play, before feeding again in the afternoon. At dusk, each gorilla builds a fresh nest of leaves and branches to sleep in.
The diet for gorillas also shapes how they move. They feed in a way that protects their food supply. They rarely strip a plant bare, and they keep moving through their home range. This gives plants time to grow back, so the forest can keep feeding the family year after year.
Mountain gorillas usually travel less than a kilometre a day, because their food grows all around them. That is one reason trackers can find habituated families each morning for gorilla trekking.
What Do Baby Gorillas Eat?
Baby gorillas drink their mother's milk. Within a few months they begin tasting soft leaves, copying what their mother eats, but milk remains their main food for a long time.
Young gorillas nurse until they are about three to four years old. By then they have learned the full adult diet for gorillas, and which plants are good to eat simply by watching the adults in their family.
Do Gorillas Drink Water?
Gorillas rarely drink. Most of the water they need comes from juicy plants such as wild celery, bamboo shoots and fruit, and from the morning dew on the leaves.
So during your hour with a gorilla family, you are unlikely to see them drink. They do sometimes drink from streams, and lowland gorillas scoop water from swampy clearings, but it is not a daily habit.
Do Gorillas Eat Bananas?
Not in the wild, or at least not the fruit. The banana fruit you see gorillas eating in films and zoos does not grow in their forests.
Around Bwindi, gorillas sometimes leave the park and raid farmers' banana plantations. They tear down the plants to eat the soft inner stem, not the fruit. This damages crops and puts both people and gorillas at risk, so community teams work with the Uganda Wildlife Authority to guide gorillas back into the forest.
Feeding wild gorillas is strictly forbidden. Human food can make them sick and changes their behaviour, so you will never be allowed to give a gorilla anything to eat on a trek.
What Do Gorillas Eat in Zoos?
In zoos, gorillas eat a diet designed to match the wild diet for gorillas as closely as possible. Most of it is leafy greens and vegetables, with smaller amounts of fruit, browse branches and high-fibre primate pellets.
Keepers adjust each gorilla's food to its age and health, and they hide food around the enclosure so the gorillas forage as they would in the forest. Mountain gorillas, however, do not survive well in captivity, so none live in zoos. Every mountain gorilla you see will be in its natural forest home.
What the Diet for Gorillas Means for Your Gorilla Trek
Because gorillas spend so much of the day eating, you are very likely to see them feeding during your trek. You might watch a silverback pull down a bamboo stem, or a youngster copy its mother picking leaves.
A few rules keep both you and the gorillas safe. Stay at least 7 metres away, keep your voice low, never eat or drink near the gorillas, and do not leave any food behind in the forest. Your visit with the family lasts one hour.
In Uganda, a gorilla trekking permit costs US$800 per person, issued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority. If you want to spend four hours with a family that is still getting used to people, the gorilla habituation experience in Bwindi costs US$1,500 per person. In Rwanda, a permit costs US$1,500. You can compare the options in our gorilla permit prices guide.
To learn more about gorilla conservation, the WWF mountain gorilla page is a good place to start.
FAQs About the Diet for Gorillas
What do gorillas eat in the wild?
Gorillas mainly eat leaves, stems, shoots, pith, bark, roots and fruit. They also eat small amounts of ants and termites. Mountain gorillas eat mostly leaves and stems, while lowland gorillas eat much more fruit.
Are gorillas herbivores or omnivores?
Gorillas are mainly herbivores, but strictly speaking they are omnivores because they also eat insects such as ants and termites. They do not hunt or eat meat.
How much does a gorilla eat in a day?
An adult silverback can eat around 18 to 30 kg (40 to 65 pounds) of vegetation a day. Adult females eat a little less.
Do gorillas eat bananas?
Wild gorillas do not eat banana fruit, because it does not grow in their forests. Near Bwindi, they sometimes raid farms to eat the soft inner stem of banana plants.
Do gorillas drink water?
Gorillas rarely drink water. They get most of their water from juicy plants and morning dew, though they sometimes drink from streams.
Where can I see gorillas eating in the wild?
You can see mountain gorillas feeding on a trek in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park or Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda, or in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. A Uganda gorilla permit costs US$800.
See Gorillas Feeding in the Wild With Tulambule
Learning about the diet for gorillas is fascinating, but nothing compares with watching a gorilla family feed just a few metres away. It is one of the most moving wildlife encounters in Africa.
Tulambule Uganda Safaris is a licensed Ugandan tour operator, planning gorilla safaris since 2014. We secure your permits, arrange your lodges and transport, and pair you with an experienced driver-guide. Here are some of our most popular Uganda gorilla safaris:
- 3-Day Gorilla Trekking Uganda Tour
- 3 Days Fly-In Gorilla Safari Uganda
- 5 Days Uganda Safari: Gorillas, Chimps, Wildlife and Culture
- 10 Days Big 5 Safari in Uganda: Gorillas, Chimps, Big Game and Culture
- 12 Days Uganda Safari: Big Five, Chimps, Gorillas and Culture
Prefer Rwanda? See our Rwanda gorilla trekking guide.
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