(ORDO NEWS) — Science considered the common gorilla a fiction and a “myth” until 1847.
The term “gorilla” comes from a Carthaginian explorer named Hanno the Navigator who explored the African coast in 500 BC.
He described how he met a tribe of “gorillas”, monstrous and cruel creatures similar to humans.
Reports of monstrous hairy people attacking and taking over villages have continued for centuries, but have never been taken seriously by scientists.
In the 16th century, an English explorer described ape-like people whom he saw sitting around a fire at night.
Gorillas remained “myth” and “fiction” until 1847, when Thomas Savage found gorilla bones in Liberia.
Then, with the help of a Harvard anatomist named Jeffreys Wyman, he published an official description of the species, calling it the gorilla.
But even after that, science refused to recognize the existence of gorillas. They were not officially recognized as a species until 1902, when a German captain, Robert von Behringe, shot one of them in the Virunga region of Rwanda and took it home to Europe.
Only then did scientists recognize that gorillas really exist.
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