Lar Gibbon

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Hylobates_lar_pair_of_white_and_black_01.jpg

Scientific name: Hylobates lar

Conservation status:endangered

Life expectancy: 25-30 years

Gestation period: 180 days

Subspecies:

  • Malaysian lar gibbon
  • Carpenter’s lar gibbon
  • Central lar gibbon
  • Sumatran lar gibbon
  • Yunnan lar gibbon

Lifestyle and Location:

These gibbons are frugivorous lesser apes with fruit being 50% of their diet like figs and berries, 29% of their diet is leaves, 13% is insects and about 9% is flowers. They live in Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. Around 1/4 of their day is resting, 1/3 is feeding and only 1/10 of their day is socialising.

Appearance:

Varies from black and dark-brown to light-brown. They are all sandy kind of colours with white coloured hands and a white ring around their black fur-less faces (males and females both have all colour variations). They are around 45-50 cm and the males are slightly heavier with an average of 5.7 kg than the females who are an average of 5.3 kg.

Joss‘s Facts

  • The majority of gibbons fracture or break bones at one point in their lives due to misjudging jumps and branches snapping.
  • Can jump up to 40 feet!
  • They can catch birds mid flight and also change direction mid jump.
  • They are the fastest living primate that can wing through the canopy at a top speed of 35 mph.
  • All gibbons have a ‘wrist and ball socket joint’ meaning they can rotate the full way round. This is to help them swing through the trees faster than any other.