I've always enjoyed going to the zoo and visiting the gibbon exhibit. My girls love imitating their calls, and I've always thought of them as cute little monkeys (lesser apes, for you sticklers). But I don't think I've ever seen them bare their fangs before.
This is a yellow-cheek crested gibbon, native to portions of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. They are frugivorous, and inhabit the canopies of lowland forests... Wait, frugivorous? Of what use are those fangs in eating fruit? Are southeast Asian fruit rinds that thick? I'm thinking the researchers have it wrong when it comes to our little Nomascus gabriellae. Most of what we know about these primates comes from studying them in captivity. In the wild they must put those fangs to full effect as ravenous manhunters.
Photo source: AP Photo/Heng Sinith via Yahoo!
Sep 2, 2008
Manhunter Gibbon
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7 comments:
Or they put them to the effect one sees here, scaring other primates. Other gibbons one assumes.
Yikes.
He looks angry.
I note that while the gibbon has some impressive fangs, you can see he has a very human set of back molars, too. Huh, guess this "evolution" thing has some proof to it....
theodosia, you're so right; the rest of those teeth do look very human. Isolate the mouth, and it looks like a vampire. A vampire that could get your entire neck in its jaws. Urgh.
Aww, it looks like Voldemort
I kinda find it more disturbing that monkey has better teeth than most of the people I work with.
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