What is the largest primate?

What is the largest primate? The eastern gorilla is the largest living primate by typical body mass.

The eastern gorilla includes the eastern lowland gorilla and the mountain gorilla. Adult males are much larger than females and can weigh well over 100 kilograms, with especially large individuals approaching or exceeding 200 kilograms. Their heavy bodies, broad chests, and long muscular arms reflect a life spent moving through forest on all fours and climbing when necessary.

Eastern gorillas live in the forests of central and eastern Africa. Mountain gorillas occupy high-elevation forests in the Virunga region and Uganda, while eastern lowland gorillas live farther east in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Both subspecies are herbivorous, eating leaves, stems, shoots, fruit, and other vegetation.

Humans are taller than gorillas on average and can become heavier in exceptional cases, but gorillas are substantially more massive as a normal primate species. Orangutans and chimpanzees are also great apes, yet neither matches the gorilla’s typical size. Extinct Gigantopithecus may have been larger still, but it is not a living primate.