<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Gorilla beringei beringei Matschie, 1903 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Distribution range in blue </Td> </Tr> <P> The mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) is one of the two subspecies of the eastern gorilla . The subspecies is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN, with only two surviving populations . One is found in the Virunga Mountains of Central Africa in three bordering national parks: Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda, Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The other population is found in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park . A count in 2018 put the mountain gorilla population at just over 1,000 . </P> <P> Mountain gorillas are descendants of ancestral monkeys and apes found in Africa and Arabia during the start of the Oligocene epoch (34 - 24 million years ago). The fossil record provides evidence of the hominoid primates (apes) found in east Africa about 22--32 million years ago . The fossil record of the area where mountain gorillas live is particularly poor and so its evolutionary history is not clear . It was about 9 million years ago that the group of primates that were to evolve into gorillas split from their common ancestor with humans and chimps; this is when the genus Gorilla emerged . It is not certain what this early relative of the gorilla was, but it is traced back to the early ape Proconsul africanus . Mountain gorillas have been isolated from eastern lowland gorillas for about 400,000 years and these two taxa separated from their western counterparts approximately 2 million years ago . There has been considerable and as yet unresolved debate over the classification of mountain gorillas . The genus was first referenced as Troglodytes in 1847, but renamed to Gorilla in 1852 . It was not until 1967 that the taxonomist Colin Groves proposed that all gorillas be regarded as one species (Gorilla gorilla) with three sub-species Gorilla gorilla gorilla (western lowland gorilla), Gorilla gorilla graueri (eastern lowland gorilla) and Gorilla gorilla beringei (mountain gorilla). Following a review in 2003, they were divided into two species (Gorilla gorilla and Gorilla beringei) by The World Conservation Union (IUCN). </P>

What type of animal is a mountain gorilla