Word: langur
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...Vietnam, conservation is itself a young idea. After decades of war and isolation, the country opened its jungles up to foreign environmentalists in the 1990s, and it soon became known as a hotspot for unique species on the brink of extinction. One of the rarest is the golden-headed langur. Found on Cat Ba Island in northern Vietnam, this cliff-dwelling monkey has a population of less than...
...GRAY-SHANKED DOUC LANGUR HOME Vietnam POPULATION fewer than 1000 --Once considered just a variant of its black- and red-shanked cousins, it is thought to be distinct and critically endangered...
...animals are not benign machines that live for the group and kill only to eat. Instead, they are programmed for selfish, even murderous acts when survival and propagation are threatened. This radical shift in thinking is shown most dramatically by studies of India's sacred monkey, the hanuman langur. In 1965, a naturalist wrote that the long-tailed black and gray langurs were "relaxed" and "nonaggressive." Now, a Harvard researcher has shown that the langur society operates more like the House of Borgia, complete with kidnaping, constant sexual harassment, group battles, abandonment of some wounded young by their mothers...
...book. The Langurs of Abu, Harvard Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, 31, portrays langur life as a "soap opera" that revolves around the struggle between the sexes. As in other species, the strongest males compete for control of each troop. What makes the langurs different is that the winner tries to bite to death the young offspring of his predecessor. The mothers resist the infanticide until the struggle looks hopeless, then pragmatically present themselves to the new ruler for copulation...
Hrdy, who spent 1,500 hrs. observing langur behavior around India's Mount Abu from 1971 to 1975, documented the disappearances of 39 infants around the times of new male takeovers; she estimates that only half of all langurs survive infancy. While males shift constantly among groups, females usually spend a lifetime in one troop and cooperate in warding off danger...