The Fear of Monkeys - The Best E-Zine on the Web for Politically Conscious WritingThe White-Handed Gibbon - Issue Seventeen
The Fear of Monkeys
Get To Know

The White-Handed Gibbon, photo from Christian ArtusoThe White Handed Gibbon varies from black and dark-brown to light-brown, sandy colours. Their hands and feet are white-coloured and a ring of white hair surrounds the black face. They are true brachiators, propelling themselves through the forest by swinging under the branches using their extremely long arms and curved fingers on elongated hands. They subsist principally upon fruit and leaves, with insects and flowers forming the remainder of their diet in the dipterocarp forest, including primary lowland and submontane rainforest, mixed deciduous bamboo forest, and seasonal evergreen forest of Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. Family groups inhabit a firm territory, which they protect by warding off other gibbons with their calls each morning. Each species has a typified call and each breeding pair has unique variations on that theme. Mating occurs in every month of the year, but most conceptions occur during the dry season in March, with a peak in births during the late rainy season, in October. On average, females reproduce for the first time at about 11 years of age, gestation is six months long, and pregnancies are usually of a single young. Young are nursed for approximately two years, and full maturity comes at about eight years. Their life expectancy is about 25 years. The white-handed gibbon is threatened in various ways: they are sometimes hunted for their meat, sometimes a parent is killed to capture young animals for pets or to be imprisoned in zoos, but perhaps the most pervasive is the loss of habitat through forest clearance for the construction of roads, shifting agriculture, ecotourism, domesticated cattle and elephants, forest fires, subsistence logging, illegal logging, new village settlement, and palm oil plantations.

   


Vacillating Benny and Monsanto Max - Donal Mahoney Two old friends with a history sending packages to each other. What could be more innocent?

A Survivors Meeting - Carol Smallwood The many different branches of the tree of abuse have a similar trunk

Bear Among the Dogs - Scott Archer Jones Tensions can run high in a bar but compadres can be found in unusual places

Ebookery: One Sudden Perspective - Ken Poyner The market for publishing is not always endless duplication of bitcoin wealth

Dear Job - John Grey The view of the worker from the ugly inside of capitalism

Smoke and Mirrors - Michael C. Keith Sometimes it is much harder to be a whistle blower than the movies would make it seem

Bible Times Dinner Theater - JD DeHart Some stories never get old, although they can be recontextualized

The Lynching at the Legion - Whit Young A paean to peace from the soldiers

My Writing - Anthony Villett A juxtaposition of faith and wish

Under the Sun - Holly Day The difference between male and female power is not easy to discern

 

All Content Copyright of Fear of Monkeys