The Purple-Faced Langur. Nuwara Eliya.Sri Lanka

I met a troop of the The Purple-Faced Langur. in the botanical garden Hakgala (Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka), where are numbers of fantastic trees... This... more

by Jenny Rainbow

Title

The Purple-Faced Langur. Nuwara Eliya.Sri Lanka

Artist

Jenny Rainbow

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

I met a troop of the The Purple-Faced Langur. in the botanical garden Hakgala (Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka), where are numbers of fantastic trees... This is actually the wild animals and I should notice they are very (camera) shy and fast moving. So it took some time and a lot of patience to get the shots of them. This particular monkey was pretty brave to get down from the tree and sit a bit closer to me then all others. So i've got the chance to make some photos of him...

The purple-faced langur (Trachypithecus vetulus), also known as the purple-faced leaf monkey, is a species of Old World monkey that is endemic to Sri Lanka. The animal is a long-tailed arboreal species, identified by a mostly brown appearance, dark face (with paler lower face) and a very shy nature. The species was once highly prevalent, found in suburban Colombo and the "wet zone" villages (areas with high temperatures and high humidity throughout the year, whilst rain deluges occur during the monsoon seasons), but rapid urbanization has led to a significant decrease in the population level of the monkeys.

The Purple-faced Langur is a monkey that lives only in Sri Lanka. They live in the forest sustaining mainly on tree leaves. The Purple-faced Langur forms a group of five to ten monkeys consisting of one leader male and several female monkeys and their children. The group moves about in an area of about 20,000 to 30,000 square meters, which is relatively small compared to other types of monkeys. Each group guards its territory whilst living closely amongst other packs in a concentrated area.
Their number will continue to decline, unless something is done...
Due to Sri Lanka's deforestation and hunting, the Purple-faced Langur has dropped to a half of its existence in a matter of a few decades. Deforestation potentially destroys large numbers of Purple-faced Langurs at a time because they live in packs within small and concentrated areas. Unless something is done, the number of Purple-faced Langur could drop by another half in the next few decades.

Uploaded

October 15th, 2012