Could one hundred dudes beat a single silverback gorilla in a hand-to-hand brawl? It's an intellectual exercise that's been weighing on the minds of netizens lately, exploding into a viral meme that now has everyone from Elon Musk to Stephen A. Smith chiming in.

Smith, for example, shot down his nephew's assertion that a hundred average men could take on a single one of these hulking primates.

"First of all, you would probably run, you wuss," the ESPN host chided on a recent episode of the "Stephen A. Smith Show."

But what do the actual gorilla experts think about all this? Did anyone bother to ask them? Thankfully: yes. Rolling Stone spoke to several serious ape scientists, and they all had some interesting things to say about this (seemingly) lopsided matchup — on top of being pretty bemused, if not appalled at the very idea of it.

"As a wildlife conservationist, I would never want to see this come to fruition," Ron Magill, a nature photographer and communications director of Zoo Miami, told the magazine. "Gorillas are in fact 'gentle giants,' and would avoid this conflict whenever possible."

An adult male gorilla can weigh over 400 pounds. They have razor sharp canines and are rippling with muscle. If the face-off had to happen, Magill believes that the century of physically fit men in their twenties would prevail — but with significant, horrific casualties, especially since the humans' absurd numerical advantage wouldn't help as much as some would think. It's simply not possible for all of them to attack at once, so the first humans unto the breach would be going into a veritable meat grinder.

"It could be a kamikaze mission for the men closest to the gorilla," Magill told Rolling Stone. The human warriors "would have to expect severe collateral damage that could easily include death from broken necks, severe arterial bite wounds, massive concussions leading to fatal brain bleeds, and asphyxiation from other men piling on top of them." Many would be disfigured or left paralyzed.

And the men would have to stay organized — which is easier said than done, since it'd be pretty demoralizing to see a comrade get beaten into a beef patty. But the winning strategy? Surrounding the gorilla and forming a "human straightjacket" so it can't breathe or move its limbs, Magill said.

But in case Magill hasn't already put the fear of the Gorilla God into potential challengers, Cat Hobaiter, a primatologist and professor at Scotland's University of St Andrews, thinks that the lone gorilla could actually win — especially if the ape has the home field advantage.

 "If we're talking mountain gorillas, they're high-altitude adapted, living at about 10,000 feet, the sort of height that has an average human panting just going up a few stairs," Hobaiter told Rolling Stone. "Honestly, 100 guys wouldn't stand a chance. They're going to be swatting at him like out-of-breath children, and a single one of his punches would floor them."

"And if the next 92 guys don't realize they don't stand a chance after he has knocked the first eight out without breaking a sweat," she added, "I've got to assume we're not talking about folks who are going to outsmart him."

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