Animal of the Week January 22, 2007 -- Pull tiger tail

So sorry I'm late again. My zoological and Prisoner Cell Block H knowledge was needed in a pub quiz. Anyhooos, here I am finally embracing the multimedia revolution and sending you a link to a youtube video. Don't get used to it, mind.

Of course, as is the tendency with youtube videos, you have probably already all seen this. Please reply with the phrase "yawn head keeper, yawn" in the subject line if you have. Anyway, this week's animal of the week is a Hylobates lar (white handed gibbon, lar gibbon). Watch the video and you'll see why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AZn5nWIj_g

(the soundtrack is awful, I suggest you download something by jerky indie poseurs Pull Tiger Tail and make your own appropriate bed). Quite why the gibbon is behaving like this is a mystery to me. But it certainly looks to be having fun.

Worry not fact fans, the lesson endeth not here. One of 13 species, lar gibbons of Southeast Asia, China, and Indonesia, are pretty standard gibbons: about 5.5 kg, at home in the treetops, rarely on the ground, and monogamous. Although they typically mate for life, pairs sometimes divorce; and even more saucily, females in estrus sometimes sneak across to another pair's territory and have it away with a different male.

Cheeky gibbons!

Celebrity a-like: Andrew Marr 50% (it's in the arms)
Top speed: 10 mph
Tenacity: 4
Likelihood of hurting The Feeling: 35%
Aesthetically pleasing: 5
Violence: 3
Can be kept on a roof terrace: 1
Religiousity: 5
Special skill: Brachiating 80

Peter Hayward
Head Keeper
Animal of the Week