Gorillas have a big fight ahead of them, and it’s not against 100 men, expert says
As much as the news media serves to inform the public, we’re also here to give you something to talk about. Learning about the world around us provides the connective tissue for spirited interactions and growing deeper bonds with each other.
What are you going to bring up at the dinner table to get the conversation flowing? Did you read that article everybody has been talking about, too?
Who is it? This week’s main character is not a person, dear reader.
It’s a simple question and it may lead to the most titillating water cooler conversation you’ve heard this week.
Who would win in a fight? One hundred men or a single silverback gorilla?
What’s the big deal? This question, as absurd as it may sound, really got the wheels spinning for people online for the past few days. The origins of the query date back to some years-old Reddit threads. Some content recycling caused it to gain a lot of traction with social media users who wanted to offer their two cents on who would win in man-vs-ape combat.
Lots of different factors were considered to determine potential outcomes. Which men? Will tools be involved? And perhaps most importantly, what did a gorilla ever do to you?
What are people saying? Well, of course, we got da internet funny guys saying da internet funny things:
[signing to gorilla] Me Michael. Michael friend gorilla. No fight gorilla. Michael betray man for friend gorilla.
— michael (@My3rdAugustine) April 28, 2025
NPR also spoke with Tara Stoinski — president, CEO and chief scientific officer for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Stoinski has been studying gorillas for more than 30 years. So, who does she think would win?
Stoinski says to answer the question, we should first consider what both sides are bringing to the battle.
“Male gorillas are the largest primate on the planet. They weigh 400 pounds. They have incredible upper body strength, really strong jaw muscles. So, they bring a lot to a fight,” she explained.
But that doesn’t mean one gorilla could take on 100 human men!
“I think just the sheer numbers that the humans have would mean that the gorilla would probably eventually be overpowered,” says Stoinski. “The humans could come together, they could strategize, they could take turns. And I think over time, they’d just be able to wear the gorilla down through coordination and just the number of them that are involved in the fight.”
Stoinski says that though this is a silly meme, it’s also an opportunity to think critically about how we perceive gorillas.
“We know from the studies that were done by Dian Fossey, starting 60 years ago and that continue to this day, that the real nickname for gorillas is gentle giants,” Stoinski explained.
She says they are tender and affectionate and it’s common to see males playing very gently with their infants.
“I’ve literally seen females using a gorilla’s back as a pillow during a resting session. They obviously have all this size and strength and that is to defend their family should they need to,” says Stoinski. “But their personas are much more gentle than I think is out in the public literature.”
So, what now? Stoinski hopes that this discourse will pivot the conversation to saving gorillas from extinction.
“People are fascinated by gorillas. This topic may be very silly, but it opens up the opportunity to talk about, well, what fights should we be discussing? And that’s really the fight for survival that gorillas have. They are critically endangered and we are at risk of losing them. And so, it gives the opportunity to kind of pivot the conversation and talk about their fight for survival totally.”
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