![]() ![]() In the spring of 2007 Titus led his troop to the peak of a volcanic mountain. This was noted by researchers as being at odds with Titus' "calm" leadership style in previous years. He was also observed biting a female after she was caught mating with Kuryama in secret. By age thirty, however, his dominance was waning and he began regularly fighting with his silverback son Kuryama. Titus sired more children than any other gorilla on record and by 2004 controlled the largest known gorilla troop in the world. Beetsme remained in the troop as Titus' subordinate until his death in 2001. ![]() In 1991, now matured to a silverback, Titus began asserting his dominance over the other males in the troop and a year later, aged 18, he displaced Beetsme as the dominant male. DNA analysis shows he sired his first offspring, Kuryama, by the group's dominant female Papoose in 1985 – the youngest recorded siring by a gorilla. However, during this time he mated covertly with the troop's females. Titus, still a blackback, remained subordinate to Beetsme for six years. When five females did eventually join the troop, Beetsme-now a fully-grown silverback-drove off the other males except Titus and became its dominant male. The troop was without females for eight years, during which time they were observed engaging in homosexual behaviour. Titus and Beetsme, who seemed to have formed a bond, then became the nucleus of an unstable bachelor group. However the blackback was rejected and the females left. Beetsme attempted to take control of the troop, killing the infant daughter of its dominant female Aunt Flossie. Shortly afterwards Titus' father and dominant silverback Uncle Bert (named for Diane's uncle) was killed by poachers. He was named Beetsme by Dian Fossey when she was asked by a visiting friend who he was and replied "Beats me". When Titus was four years old a blackback male joined his troop. He was named by gorilla researcher Kelly Stewert, who was observing his group at the time, after the eponymous protagonist of the Mervyn Peake novel Titus Groan. He was the subject of the 2008 PBS Nature/ BBC Natural World documentary film Titus: The Gorilla King. Titus (24 August 1974 – 14 September 2009) was a silverback mountain gorilla of the Virunga Mountains, observed by researchers almost continuously over his entire life. ![]() Silverback mountain gorilla of the Virunga Mountains ![]()
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