Gibbon Information                                                                    < home

Gibbon, Gibbons, Gibbon apes, Gibbon monkey

Taxonomy
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Infraorder: Catarrhini
Family: Hylobatidae

Physical Description
The 12 species of gibbons are classified, referring to their size, as lesser apes. They exhibit many of the general characteristics of primates: flat faces, stereoscopic vision, enlarged brain size, grasping hands and feet, and opposable digits; and many specific characteristics of apes: broad chest, full shoulder rotation, no tail, and arms longer than legs.

Gibbons are relatively small, slender, and agile. They have fluffy, dense hair. They are not sexually dimorphic in size. Mature females usually weigh more than mature males. They have very long arms, which they use in a spectacular arm-swinging locomotion called brachiation. Their hands and fingers are also very long. The relatively short thumb is set well down on the palm, and their fingers form a hook, which is used during brachiation. Gibbons have very good bipedal locomotion, which they use on stable surfaces too large to grasp. When walking bipedally, arms are held up to keep from dragging and to assist with balance. Gibbons are sometimes observed putting their weight on their hands and swinging their legs through as if using crutches.

Gibbons do not build nests like the great apes. They sleep sitting up with their arms wrapped around their knees and their head tucked into their lap. They have ischial callosities (fleshy, nerveless pads attached to the hip bones, a characteristic otherwise found only in Old World monkeys).

Social Structure
Gibbons live in small, monogamous families composed of a mated pair and up to four offspring. Less than six percent of all primate species (more than 300) are considered monogamous.

Gibbons are one of the few apes where the adult female is the dominant animal in the group. The hierarchy places her female offspring next followed by the male offspring and finally by the adult male.

Gibbons are physically independent at about three, mature at about six, and usually leave the family group at about eight, though they may spend up to ten years in their family group.

Communication
Gibbons are renowned for their loud, complex vocalizations. These calls are used to announce location, defend territory, and to develop and maintain pair bonds. The adult pair, sometimes joined by practicing juveniles, sing duets. The song is composed of separate male and female elements, including a great call sung by the female. Each pair develops its own variation on a theme so the vocalizations also identify individuals. Singing is typically done at dawn because of its purpose as a locator and spacing mechanism for groups. However, it may also be heard at other times of the day.

Life span
Longevity in the wild is 25 to 30 years and can be as long as 40 years in captivity.

Conservation
All gibbons are endangered, largely due to deforestation. They are also hunted and trapped for the pet trade.

A gibbon dating agency is helping to reintroduce once captive apes into the forests of southeast Asia.

Unusually among apes, a male and female gibbon will mate and remain faithful to one another for life, reaffirming their bond with complex mating songs.

But across southeast Asia, gibbons are captured and illegally held as pets.

Now one conservationist is returning these apes to the wild, by first rescuing them, and then using his match-making skills to pair them up.

The story of the gibbon-dating agency is told by the programme "Radio Gibbon", broadcast as part of the BBC wildlife series "Natural World".

The agency is run by Chanee Brule, a 29-year-old Frenchman who fell in love with gibbons after seeing them in a zoo as a child.

Brule runs a sanctuary in Kalimantan

He studied the apes from a young age, producing a guide to their captive care aged 13.

Today, he runs a gibbon sanctuary in a region of Borneo called Kalimantan.

At the sanctuary, Brule has broken with convention in more ways than one.

Firstly, he broadcasts a radio station from it, Radio Kalaweit, which has been dubbed "Radio Gibbon".

By playing vibrant pop music, he has acquired an active audience of young people in the region, which he also educates about ape conservation.

As a result, he receives a significant number of tip offs about gibbons that are being illegally held as pets, or have been abandoned by their owners.

Brule and his team rescue these apes, caring for them at the sanctuary.

But that is only the start of the work.

Rehabilitated gibbons cannot be returned alone into the wild, as they will be attacked by other pairs defending their territory.

Chanee Brule broadcasts 'Radio Gibbon'

So Brule attempts to pair up gibbons at the sanctuary, by match-making rescued apes.

"You can't put one male and one female in one cage and know for sure it will be a good pair," he says.

"You need to find the right character, the right gibbon with the right partner."

In particular, says Brule, one gibbon tends to dominate within each pair, and the dominant partner can be either the male or female.

"If both gibbons don't want to be dominated they will fight until one dies," he says.

So they attempt partnerships between a more dominant and less dominant character.

These pairs are then released into the forest together.

In the programme, Brule releases two siamangs together onto the island of Marak off the coast of Sumatra, where he is setting up a new sanctuary.

Gibbons are among the most endangered of all apes, living in tropical and sub-tropical forest in and around India and China, including the islands of Borneo, Java and Sumatra.

Baby gibbons are raised at the sanctuary

The belong to the small apes, which include four genera of gibbon and the siamang.

The great apes include gorillas, chimps and orangutans.

All 16 gibbon species are under threat, with 15 classed as endangered and four of them critically so.

The apes are threatened by habitat loss caused by deforestation, much to make way for palm oil plantations, and by poaching, with animals being stolen for the pet trade.

Brule's work is partly funded by the International Primate Protection League, a worldwide charity headquartered in Summerville, South Carolina, US.

"Radio Gibbon" will be broadcast on BBC Two at 2100GMT on Thursday 10 December as part of the BBC Natural World documentary series.

Gibbons

Gibbons (genus Hylobates) are the smallest members of the ape family. Gibbons are found in Southeast Asia, China, and India, and nine species are recognized. They spend most of their lives at the tops of trees in the jungle, eating leaves and fruit. They are extremely agile, swinging with their long arms on branches to move from tree to tree, and they often walk upright on tree branches. Gibbons are known for their loud calls and songs, which are used to announce their territory and warn away others. They are devoted parents, raising one or two offspring at a time and showing extraordinary affection in caring for them. Conservationists and biologists who have worked with gibbons describe them as extremely intelligent, sensitive, and affectionate.

Gibbons have long been hunted as food, for medical research, and for sale as pets and zoo specimens. A common method of collecting them is to shoot the mother and then capture the infant. The mortality rate in collecting and transporting gibbons to places where they can be sold is extremely high, and this coupled with the destruction of their jungle habitat has resulted in severe depletion of their numbers. Despite a ban on the international trade in gibbons (by CITES), illegal commerce, particularly of babies, continues in markets throughout Asia.

Read more: Apes - Gibbons http://science.jrank.org/pages/457/Apes-Gibbons.html#ixzz0Zi4PkpNp

Gibbon Rehabilitation Project (GRP) on Phuket Island    >> ENTER WEBSITE

On Phuket Island, there are still a few pieces of tropical rain forest left. One is near Bang Pae Waterfall, shown above. It certainly is worth the while to go there and walk to the waterfall. To get there, coming form anywhere on the island, head for Thalang, then go to the monument of the Heroines of Phuket and take road 4027 northbound from there. (Or ask your taxi driver to bring you there).
Near the entrance of the area you will find a very small, but enthusiastically lead, project: The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. Here white-handed gibbons (Hylobates lar) - and other types of gibbons - that have been maltreated as a "tourist attraction" are being made ready for their return into Nature. Sadly not even the area near the Project is not safe to let them free. Even there the danger is too great that they are being caught again, so you can not enjoy their presence there. They are being released in the woods near the Project and are kept under control there.

Do not expect a kind of zoo there. The gibbons living there have to be "de-humanified", so you can see them in their (large) cages, but only from a distance. Nevertheless you can see them and enjoy their beautiful singing. In the meantime you can read about the project and donate money to it, for example by buying articles, or by "adopting" one or more of the gibbons.

This is the "front desk" of the GRP. You will only see volunteers there. Most of them are foreign. But do not think that they get free air tickets or large amounts of money for expenses, because they get noting but the pleasant company of the gibbons!
You might even overlook the entrance of this small project. It is more or less hidden in wood. Look for the sign you can see on the right hand picture above, and walk a few steps up to the desk.
The gibbons you will see in the Project area are white handed gibbons, the extremely beautiful ones with a white circle of hair around their face and white hair on the top of their hands and feet. They are most wanted by illegal catchers, because of their rare beauty. You can see them on the two pictures above and on the two pictures at the bottom of this page (all pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them). The ones at the bottom of the page were scanned and are not really sharp.

Right below this piece of text you can get a better look at two different types gibbons, pictured in Dusit Zoo in Bangkok. Be stunned about the extreme beauty and expressiveness of these cousins of yours!

 Gibbons

Gibbons are apes, rather closely related to humans. Their biological name is Hylobates lar. The most well-known apes are the "great apes" (Gorilla, Orangutan, Chimpanzee and Bonobo). Like these other apes, gibbons do not have tails. They mostly hang in trees and their normal way of transportation is with their arms, from branch to branch, but when they walk, they walk upright, like humans. This is even more remarkable, because even the "great apes" most of the times walk on their hands and feet.
They are quite small (around 50 cm. high, we estimate) and in good zoos you will be able to see them in an environment where they have enough space. Examples in Thailand areDusit Zoo in Bangkok and the zoo in Korat (Nakhon Rachasima). At the bottom of this page you can download a screen saver with pictures of giboons living (apparently happily) in Korat Zoo.
When they are happy, they "sing" in an extremely beautiful way. The meaning of the song is to show who is in charge on the territory. This singing only is worth a trip to a good zoo or to the GRP on Phuket Island. But you can also hear a gibbon sing by clickling here!
Their food consists of fruit, tree leaves, flowers and insects. If left alone, they will reach an age of around 30 years.
Gibbons are monogamous and their natural habitat is South-East Asia. In Thailand there were many gibbons in the past, but humans have maltreated them by catching them for their "pleasure" and by deforestation. Gibbons are almost extinct now in Thailand.
It has been popular (also on Phuket) to catch wild gibbons and put them in cages. They were (and even are today) forced to smoke cigarettes, drink whisky and perform other disgusting acts for tourists.

Whenever you see a gibbon during your visit to Thailand in such circumstances, PLEASE inform the GRP. You can find their address, telephone number and further details at the bottom of this page!

When gibbons become around seven years old, they should become sexually active and they become difficult to handle. This is the stage when they are being "dumped" or even killed by their (unlawful!) owners. Or sometimes they are being put in a small cage or chained, which makes it impossible for them to move as they should in Nature.
You can compare this situation with life in prison, but in this case a much too small prison to survive properly.

The GRP on Phuket tries to save gibbons from this situation. For that reason it deserves your support!

But do not think that this is all the harm that is being done to gibbons. Far from it. The catching of a gibbon is one of the worst acts. As you should understand, a gibbon mother will not hand over her baby voluntarily to humans, so the "normal practice" to catch a young gibbon is to shoot its mother first. And sometimes other gibbons will try to save the young baby, so behind one young gibbon caught for "pleasure" you can see the dead ghosts of one to four adult gibbons.

Would your wife hand over your baby to a group of apes voluntarily? So how would you like your wife (and yourself and other companions) to be killed by a group of apes, because they would like to own a small human for their entertainment? This is the way you should look at the illegal capturing of gibbons.

About Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket
The Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket attracts tourists from all over the world. In order to conserve the gibbons the Gibbons Rehabilitation Center in Phuket was formed. The gibbons are conserved here in their natural habitat.

The Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket was constructed under the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. Built in the year 1992 it helps to send the domesticated gibbons back into their natural habitats.

The credit for initiating the Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket Thailand goes to Mr. Nappodal Preuksawan. He was the presiding officer at the Royal Forest Department at Phuket at that point of time. Other co creators are Terrence Dillon Morrin, a zoologist from the USA and Mr. Thavrn Sri-Oon who was the chief of the Bang Pae sub-station and the Asian Wildlife Fund. The Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand joined the bandwagon and started to lend its support from 1994 onwards. Now this center is regarded as a research division of the same.

Located near the Bang Pae Waterfall in Phuket in Thailand this park mostly runs on the generosity of the visitors. The donation of the tourists and purchase of T shirts are supposed to help the project of Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket from a financial point of view. It is at the Khao Pra Theaw Non-Hunting Area.

Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket helps to domesticate these animals. The Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket remains open from 9 A.M. to 4.30P.M. This conservation park has helped a lot with regards to the poaching of these hapless animals.

Objectives of Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket

The Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Phuket works as per certain objectives, which may be mentioned as below:

Please help us save these amazing animals and the southeast asian forests - their natural habitat.

Gibbons live in the tropical forests of Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries.

This is where they belong and this is where they should be for ever.

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The Gibbon

The many species of Gibbon are referred to as the Lesser Apes. They are smaller than the splendid Apes, the Gorilla, Orangutan, Chimpanzee and Bonobo. The largest species of Gibbon is the Siamang which grows to about 14 Kg (31 lb). The Bonobo is the smallest of the splendid Apes, on average, and an adult female weighs about 30 kg with a male weighing about 40Kg.

Male and female Gibbons are about an identical size. This is distinct from the splendid Apes. In all the splendid Apes, the males are greater than the females. In Humans there is in addition an average difference in size between males and females.

Depending on which category you use there are between 8 and 15 different species of Gibbon.

Tree Loving

Excluding things that can fly, the Gibbons are possibly the most agile of all the animals that live in trees. frequently they inhabit the upper parts of the trees. On the field they are vulnerable to predators. They can walk on their hind legs, holding their arms above their heads for balance.

In their trees they have few predators, but they can't survive if the trees are removed.

Diet

As well as defense, the trees provide the Gibbons with food. Like the splendid Apes and Humans they are omnivorous. Their main food is fruit, they in addition eat leaves. Like me they like better their fruit ripe, and their leaves young. They will supplement this principally herbivorous diet with insects, bird eggs and other things they can get simply.

Social Structure

Gibbons live in family groups. Both parents look after their children. The Gibbon is the only ape that is almost exclusively monogamous, and a mated pair appear to prevail together till death do them part.

This signifies that the fathers do know their children. The only other ape where this is frequent is the Gorilla, but male Gorillas have many females in their family group.

Broken Bones

Gibbons can swing from branch to branch with their arms better than any other animal. They may from time to time swing between branches as much as 12 metres apart. They have excellent binocular colour vision like the splendid Apes and Humans.

But, for sure they can miss. Examinations of captured Gibbons show that broken bones are markedly common. This in addition suggests that they commonly survive the injury.

Tool Use

Gibbons appear to use tools less than the splendid Apes or Humans, but many instances have been identified.

Threats

The many species of gibbon are the most many of the apes. They are hunted for meat, pets and traditional remedy. They are fairly vulnerable to poachers thanks to their loud cries.

The main threat to the survival of the Gibbons in the wild is the destruction of their habitat for agriculture and timber production.

Although the Gibbon group of species is yet quite many, a few species are endangered, and in multiple of the Asian countries they come from they are considered an endangered animal.

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White-handed Gibbons- Hylobates lar yunnanensis

This adorable member of the ape family is now considered extinct in China. A scientific team carried out a survey in all Chinese forests that had reported sightings of white-handed gibbons all through the last twenty years. These endangered species were last sighted in 1988, and their loud calls have not been heard since 1992. The scientist's search for the white-handed gibbons came up empty-handed. The researchers believe attributable to forest destruction and hunting, this endangered species is gone forever. An even bigger loss is for the reason that this subspecies of white-handed gibbon have never been discovered in any other place on the planet. the closing of the Chinese white-handed gibbons is an urgent wake-up call before many other ape-endangered species go extinct.

Announced in the annual Red List of Threatened Species, more than 40,000 endangered species, this includes gorillas, dolphins, corals, lots birds and fish generated the list. We don't want these animals to wind up only being seen in museums. Share this information with all your friends and let's commit the endangered list disappear!

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