The gestation periods of other animal reveals that the length of the gestation period is largely a matter of the animal specie's size. Asian elephants have a gestation period of 645 days and African elephants 640 days. Dogs and other canines have a gestation period of about 60, which is also the period for cats.nd the gestation periods of chimpanzees (237 days), gorilla (257 days) and orangutan (260 days) indicate that the approximate nine-month gestation period predates the emergence of human beings as a species.