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Animal Themes
Endangered Animals Theme Unit
Mammals

Gorillas

Gorillas
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 9
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   10.77

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    fictional, formerly, genetic, purely, swipe, violent, extensive, despite, therefore, occasionally, various, illegal, hence, lowland, species, estimate
     content words:    Empire State Building, Cross River, Bwindi Forest, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic

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Other Languages
     Spanish: Los Gorilas

Gorillas   
1     Gorillas live in the deep jungles of central Africa. Despite their seemingly ferocious appearance, gorillas are very gentle and peace-minded, forest-dwelling giants. In fact, unlike the image portrayed in the 1933 movie "King Kong", gorillas do not attack humans unless threatened. Hence, witnessing a gorilla taking over Manhattan and climbing to the top of the Empire State Building is purely fictional.
 
2     Scientists long ago established that there's just one gorilla species in the world. Nevertheless, after extensive genetic research, some scientists questioned this fact. Instead, they concluded that there are two gorilla species, each of which has several subspecies. The two gorilla species are the western gorilla and the eastern gorilla. The western gorilla has two subspecies, the western lowland gorilla and the Cross River gorilla, whereas the eastern gorilla has three subspecies, the eastern lowland gorilla (or the Grauer's gorilla), the mountain gorilla, and the Bwindi Forest gorilla. Notably, since the number of gorilla species and the number of gorilla subspecies are still hotly debated among scientists, the information you find from various sources may differ.
 
3     Regardless of how many types of gorillas there are, all gorillas establish their residence in dense forests. We can find gorillas in several central African countries, such as Rwanda, Uganda, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Cameroon, Nigeria, and Gabon.

Paragraphs 4 to 7:
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