Also known as Black Monkey, it belongs to
the Pongidae family of Primates order, with the Latin scientific name of
Hylobates leucogenys, and English name of White-cheeked
Gibbon.
White-cheeked Gibbon is slender in body
form, with wide shoulder and small hips. It has no tail. The length of its body
is 40 to 65 centimeters. It can reach the ground with the two hands when
standing erect. Body hair of the male is black, with pointed crest hair on the
calvaria. Young female is black; it is isabelline or golden yellow when grown
up, also with black crest hair on the calvaria. The maximal difference from
black gibbon is that White-cheeked Gibbon has distinct white spots on the two
cheeks.
It inhabits in tropical rain forests at an
elevation of below 1,500 meters, forming subgroups of an adult couple with 2 to
3 young ones. It lives among trees, feeding on wild fruits, tree buds, young
leaves and flowers, especially fond of banyan fruits, as well as some insects.
It likes mooing; when the sun rises, the adult apes moo first, then all of them
moo together. The sound is euphonious, transmitting to several miles afar.
It is distributed in southern Yunnan
Province. Owing to cultivating wasteland and planting rubber tree in the past,
large areas of tropical rain forests have been destroyed, leading to sharp
reduction in distribution and number of White-cheeked Gibbon. It is in urgent
need of strict protection.
White-cheeked Gibbon has been listed in
Appendix I of International Trade Convention on Endangered Wild Plant and
Animal Species.