Cross River gorilla

[ kraws riv-er guh-ril-uh, kros ]

noun

1. the world’s rarest gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla diehli ), found only in the mountainous forests near the Cross River along the border of Nigeria and Cameroon and noted for defensively throwing sticks and sod at humans, an unusually bold gorilla behavior: named as a distinct subspecies of the western gorilla in 2000 for its shorter skull and smaller cranial vault and palate, it is victimized by hunting and habitat loss and is the most critically endangered of all great apes.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Cross River gorilla¹

First recorded in 1970–75