A year ago, I was on a family vacation with my husband and children. We went to a zoo and immediately headed for the gorilla exhibit (our favorite.) Even though nobody asked, I confidently declared that I had identified the “silverback” of the group, believing that to be shorthand for the dominant adult male who procreates with the rest of the adult females. After all, I had seen at least two gorilla documentaries and they made it very clear that gorilla society consisted of one (1) silverback male, adult females, and their children.
But as I kept watching, I realized that the other gorillas also appeared to be male, and there was more than one silverback. Terrified of looking like a moron in front of my two young children and countless other four-year-olds nearby, I frantically began searching for some kind of placard that might explain my humiliating fumble. I wondered for a moment if the female gorillas were just a bit masculine-presenting, or perhaps (gulp) I had misgendered a gorilla.
As it turns out, all the gorillas were male. Silverbacks are simply mature gorillas, and these silverbacks weren’t procreating at all. They were part of a “bachelor troop,” which apparently happens in the wild too, not only with gorillas but other primates as well. Bachelor troops consist of all the male gorillas who weren’t able to solidify status as a dominant male of a family—including young “blackbacks” (teenage gorillas, basically) who just haven’t matured enough to reproduce, and older gorillas for whom it is so, so over actually. In other words: most male gorillas spend either most or some of their lives in little families of gorillacels.
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