New baby black crested gibbon spotted

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A baby black crested gibbon was spotted in the Wuliang National Nature Reserve in Pu'er City, southwest China's Yunnan Province on Sunday.

The baby gibbon belongs to a family which comprises of one male gibbon, his two female mates and their children in the nature reserve. The baby is the seventh member of the family.

Male black crested gibbons are all black with black hairless faces. /VCG Photo

According to Xiong Youfu, an observer with the nature reserve, the baby gibbon was born on Feb 14 this year and now it is almost two months old.

"It (the mother gibbon) disappeared into tree canopy for quite a while, which made me curious. And then, it came to me that the gibbon had mated (with a male gibbon last year), and she probably would give birth that month. Half an hour later, it came out holding a baby gibbon. It became a mother," said Xiong.

At the moment, there are only 1,200 to 1,500 black crested gibbons across the world. They mainly live in the areas of the Wuliang Mountain and Ailao Mountain in Yunnan. And Yunnan's Jingdong Yi Autonomous Prefecture is the major habitat for black crested gibbons.

"Years of observation have shown that there are 80 gibbon families living in the Wuliang Mountain, with four families in the Ailao Mountain. And over 400 black crested gibbons live in Jingdong area," said Lin Deyong, director of the national nature reserve police station under the Natural Resources Public Security Bureau in Jingdong Yi Autonomous Prefecture.

Females have yellowish-beige hair with black hairless faces. /VCG Photo‍

The black crested gibbons are family-based animals under top-level state protection. They have a low reproduction rate, usually reproducing once every three to four years.

(Cover image via VCG)

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