Shangri-la: The Primates of Sri Lanka

Nearly seven million monkeys leap about Sri Lanka’s trees, the vast majority of them Toque Macaques. To these can be added a handful of lorises, their ancient and more wet-nosed primate relatives. These much overlooked mammals of beguiling rarity and beauty, have talent for invisibility that outsteps even that of Tolkien’s Frodo when wearing The Ring, their visibility not aided by the serious existential threat they face, with numbers of the combined loris species barely rising much about 100,000. With over a third of the country still covered by some form of forest and over 800 trees and shrubs to choose from, the island is a tree hugger’s Shangri-la; and on first sight it would seem quite logical to assume that Sri Lanka was overrun with monkeys of many species. But in fact, the reverse is true. Quality trumps quantity. Just three variants are found on the island - The Hanuman Langur; The Purple-Faced Langur; and The Toque Macaque. The Hanuman Langur The Hanuman langur, also called the Tufted Gray langur - is one of three Semnopithecus priam variants, all of which are found in India; but only Semnopithecus priam thersites lives in Sri Lanka. Various theories – conflicting, convoluted and largely unprovable – have been put forward to account for why the Sri Lankan sub species, thersites, is different to those found in India, though the differences would tax the deductive powers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Even so, patriotic toxicologists are pressing the case for the Sri Lankan variant to be declared a separate endemic species in its own right. As the debate on this rumbles on, the langur in question gets on with its life blamelessly – and relatively unthreatened by the millstones of modern life. It was named rather eccentrically for Thersites, a bow-legged antihero from Homer’s Trojan Wars, who was later promoted by Plato as a man best fit for the afterlife. This was a doubtful honour to bestow one of Sri Lanka’s elite mammals. Up to sixty inches long head to tail with a weight that can hit close to fifteen kilos, its black face is framed in a wispy white beard that runs from forehead to chin. It is a light grey in colour, and lives as readily in dry forests as urban areas – showing a strong preference for antique cultural sites if their dwellings in such places as Polonnaruwa, Dambulla, Anuradhapura, and Sigiriya are anything to go by. Once settled, they tend to stay put, having little of the gypsy tendency within them. Eagerly vegetarian, they live in troops of up to 50 members, the larger ones being curiously non-sexist - with leadership shared between a male-female pair. Langur monkeys comes with all the complexities of a relatively capacious family – and they live in groups within which strict social hierarchies are observed. Quite how many species belong to the Langur family is a modestly debated subject amongst mammalian taxonomists, but at the last count there were eight. Or seven, depending, stretching from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka. The Purple-Faced LangurThe Hanuman langur shares the closest of all possible evolutionary relationships with the island’s second monkey species, the purple-faced langur – so much so in fact that they have even been known to mate. This is the rarer of the island’s two langur species, its endemic status free of any debate or argument. It lives largely in dense forest but is now threatened by habitat loss that has noticeably eroded its numbers. Vegetarian, with a tendency to opt for leaves ahead of other foods, it is shy and slightly smaller than Hanuman langur but easy to tell apart for its darker colouring, the black brown fur of its body contrasting with the mop of wispy white fur that surrounds its face and sit atop its head. Despite, or perhaps because of being one step away from being critically endangered, the purple-faced langur has settled into its different island environments like a hand in a glove and evolved into a variety of sub species. The Southern lowland wet zone purple-faced langur stands out for its more varied markings – a black upper torso and lavish white whiskers. Occasionally all-white versions are spotted. The Western purple-faced langur - also confusingly named the north lowland wet zone purple-faced langur is the smallest of the lot, its fur a dark greyish brown. The Dryzone purple-faced langur is, in contrast, the biggest version - with arresting white cheeks and an exceptionally long tail. The Montane purple-faced langur, sometimes called the Bear Monkey comes with extra shaggy fur, all the better to keep it warm on the higher mountains on which it prefers to live. Excited taxologists from Jaffna have also called for the recognition of a firth sub species - vetulus harti. Although there are no reliable recorded sightings of it as a living mammal, its pelts have been found around Jaffna and Vavuniya – strikingly yellow gold. The Toque Macaque The island’s third monkey ...