ZOO Report
...e Langur is diurnal, arboreal, and a quadruped. The males are slightly larger than the females. They can be found in China and Vietnam. Langurs are Old World monkeys and are found within the super family cercopithecoidea. They jump from tree to tree so they are brachiators. In the exhibit there were four Francois Langurs. One of them was a male, which was made obvious when I observed him sitting in a tree with his legs open and his genitals were showing. He was very active because he was jumping from tree to tree. At one point he went up to the window and showed his canine teeth, maybe as a threat to the people staring at him through the glass. Then he went to the small stream at the bottom and began to drink the water. The other three were all females. Two of them began to fight over something and then quickly made up by grooming each other. The females didn’t seem to pay much attention to the male. The last primate I observed in the Helen Branch Primate House was the Black Howler monkey (Alouatta caraya). There was only one male in the exhibit. He was all black with coarse looking hair and a naked face. He had a prehensile tail that is used like a fifth hand that helps catch his fall or swing from tree to tree. They rarely climb to the ground because it is uncomfortable for them to walk about. They have no opposable thumb. They are arboreal and diurnal. Howlers eat a lot of leaves and fruits and figs. They are commonly found in the rainforests in Southern Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. They are said to sleep about 80% of the day. Howlers are New World monkeys or platyrrhini. There was only one male Howler in the exhibit. I observed him using his tail climbing around in the tree. He drank some water from the stream at the bottom and ate some lettuce. The Howler looked all alone because he was the only one of his kind and did not seem to interact with the other primates. They all seemed to get along fine. The next place I went to was the Small Mammal House. There I observed the Pygmy Slow Loris (Nycticebus pygmaeus). The Loris is a dull reddish-brown with fur surrounding the eyes. They have a wooly coat that is short and thick. The eyes are large and forward facing. The ears are small and are almost hidden in the fur. They do not have a tail. They have opposable thumbs good for grasping with hands and feet. Lorises are quadrupeds that move hand-over hand or foot. They are also nocturnal and arboreal. They are found in Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Loris eats fruits, bird eggs, insects, chicks, and geckos. In the Loris exhibit there were two Loris’s, one male and one female. They did not move very much except move around the tree. They seemed to get along with each other very well. They moved about the tree very slowly. Next stop was to the Regenstein Center for African Apes, where I observed Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). First I checked out the Gorillas. They are the largest primates and their coat is black or brownish. They have small ears and big nostrils. They are terrestrial, walking on the soles of their feet from their hind legs and their knuckles of their hands. They have five fingers and five toes. Gorillas use brachiatation to move about. They have opposable thumbs so they can grasp objects and opposable big toes for the reason. Gorillas do not have a tail. They are herbivores that eat mostly plants, fruits, seeds, tree bark, tender plant shoots, and flowers. Gorillas rarely drink water and are able to climb trees but never really do so. There were six females and one male in the exhibit along with a ten months old baby and a three-week-old baby. The females sat in the trees and the ropes and the male made a bed of stra...