Asia

White-handed gibbons are small tailless apes with soft, thick fur. They live in trees and like to stay high up in the canopy of trees. Their very long arms allow them to swing effortlessly among the tree branches.

White-handed gibbons retire to their sleeping trees several hours before dusk. Unlike great apes, these lesser apes do not make nests. Individuals sleep one to a tree, neighboring one another.

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Gibbons not only include the most endangered apes but also the most endangered primate species of the world. The main reasons for this are habitat loss and degradation, hunting and illegal trade. In addition, they are hunted for food and for use in local medicine.

Gibbons are highly intelligent animals. They can recognize themselves in the mirror. Also, they are able to communicate via various songs.

Once numbering around 2,000 individuals in the 1950s, the Hainan gibbon underwent a severe decline in the late twentieth century due to habitat loss and hunting, and is now one of the most threatened species in the world, with only an estimated 28 individuals remaining.

Gibbons are not monkeys. They are part of the ape family and are classified as lesser apes because they are smaller than the great apes. The great apes are bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, humans, and orangutans. Gibbons are famous for the swift and graceful way they swing through the trees by their long arms.

Monkeys are arranged into two main groups: Old World and New World. Old World monkeys all belong to one family, Cercopithecidae, which is related to apes and humans, and together they are classified as catarrhines (meaning “downward-nosed” in Latin).

Carbone said other studies have estimated the gibbon genome as 96 percent similar to people, compared with 98 percent for chimpanzees, our closest ape cousin.

Are gibbons dangerous? Gibbons normally do not pose a threat to humans. Like any animal in the wild, however, they become aggressive when they believe their family or their territory is in danger.

The phylogenetic split of the superfamily Hominoidea (apes) into the Hylobatidae (gibbons) and Hominidae (great apes) families (also dubbed “gibbon–human last common ancestor”, GHLCA) is dated to the early Miocene, roughly 20 to 16 million years ago.

Originally Answered: Why are human beings so fragile? We’re physically fragile because being that way actually increased our chances for survival. If we were made to withstand extreme cold without freezing, we wouldn’t be able to adapt to heat when things change.