i was wondering if you can train a gorilla to do bench presses and if anyone ever has seen a gorilla lift weights. I figure if a man can bench press 1000 pounds a gorilla might be able to do 5000 pounds and squat 7000 pounds. also Id like to see one grab a pair of dumbbells and see how much it can lift. Who do you think would win in a gorilla vs bear fight? also if alligators cant be trained they are an animal like a dog. whats so different about them and a dog. If theyve been around for millions of years I thought they would be smart enough to be able to learn tricks.
Speed kills.
I have a bunch of weights. If you can get your hands on a gorilla perhaps I can lend you the weights to find out!
I don’t think that means what you think that means.
What do you think I think that means?
I don’t believe there have been any definitive studies on gorilla strength and the problem is difficult to easily resolve. Back in the 20s or 30s there was a simplistic experiment done in which a human pulled a metal coil and the pull strength of the human was calculated. Then a male and a female chimpanzee did the same test and their pull strength was calculated. The chimpanzees were substantially stronger than the human, I don’t believe similar tests have been done with gorillas.
Most wildlife biologists would tell you gorillas are substantially stronger than human beings. They have larger muscles, weigh more and have evolved to do things requiring greater strength than humans. But in terms of “multiples of human strength” for any of the great apes there isn’t a lot of hard science out there.
To get to the matter of weight lifting, that’s a problem. It’s highly unlikely an untrained gorilla could bench press more than a human power lifter. The reason is traditional powerlifting lifts like the squat, dead lift, and bench press all involve developed skills and adaptations specific to that motion. Someone who lifts intentionally to maximize their power lifting lifts will gain strength and muscle mass sure, that make them stronger across the board–but to max out a specific lift you need a lot of repetitive motions doing that specific lift.
A gorilla might be able to do feats of strength no human power lifter ever could, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they could do a controlled technically correct power lift in excess of a human power lifter.
Now, if you could train a gorilla at weight lifting, most likely their greater musculature means that over time they could shatter any human power lifting record. I’m not sure how easy such training would be.
What kind of bear? A gorilla would probably not want to fight with a bear, given that bears are predators and gorillas ain’t. But, if they were somehow forced into conflict, I’d imagine the bear’s aggression, natural armament and greater size (if it’s a brown/grizzly/polar bear) would carry the day handily. Now, if you could train a gorilla to use a spear, that would be a different, awesome, story.
A biologist would be able to explain this better, but there are plenty of ecologic niches where the advantages of a complex brain wouldn’t be worth the extra physiological “costs”. An alligator knows everything it needs to be good at alligator-ing, and that’s as smart as it needs to be.
Further, the ability or inclination to do tricks is not a good measure of intelligence. It’s possible for an animal to be smart, but have no interest in balancing a ball on its nose or waterver silly crap people find entertaining.
Also, being around for a long time doesn’t necessarily mean an animal is smart. Jellyfish, for example, have been around for at least 500 million years, and they don’t even have a brain.
Well, alligators are animals and dogs are animals, but they aren’t the same kind of animals. In the broad sense, humans are also animals. Do you expect that therefore alligators and dogs should be able to do everything that a human can do? Or that humans should be able to do everything that a dog or alligator can do?
Alligators are reptiles, dogs are mammals. Among other differences, reptile brains don’t have as many significant parts as mammal brains. This isn’t a secret. It’s pretty easy to find info on this from any number of sources. Did you ever consider reading about it?
Cockroaches have been around for millions of years – do think they can learn tricks? These critters have been essentially unchanged for millions of years. They’re quite well adapted to do what they do which enables them to survive through the ages. Doing tricks doesn’t figure into it, as they are quite able to manage without that ability.
I’m sorry to be critical, but these questions suggest an astonishing lack of fairly basic knowledge and give the appearance of not even trying to think about it. You might be well served to pay closer attention in school.
Not trying to be overly critical, but e.fred has a total of 4 posts on this board. In one of his first posts he ponders going scuba diving in a swamp ‘to capture frogs and lizards’. 
As many (seemingly, very knowledgeable) posters pointed out, this would NOT be a good idea. :eek:
And yet, e.fred stated that he was going to do it anyway. I’m starting to wonder just how old e.fred, IS!
Also… What Gary T. said. +1
Not strong enough to damage whatever that luggage was.
Yeah, everything I know about the strength of gorillas is thanks to Samsonite and Claude Akins. Oh, and that really strong glue they make out of them…
They claimed Gorilla Glue was made from gorillas?
I’m going to miss OP after spring break.
Where do you think monkey bread comes from?
Yup. And you know what they make Girl Scout Cookies from?
Magilla was pretty strong but he was also nice.
Baby oil too? Oh, the humanity!
I read someplace long ago that pound for pound, the orangutang was the strongest of the apes.
Not nearly as aggressive or trainable as Chimps though.
YMMV