Behavior
Gibbons are forest dwellers and are well known for their habit of swinging between the branches of the rainforest on their long arms, a method of locomotion known as brachiation. Gibbons are also adept, however, at walking upright, both on the ground and in the trees. Black crested gibbons live in small family groups consisting of a monogamous male and female and their offspring; occasionally groups reportedly may contain additional mature females. These apes are predominantly arboreal and the group forages and sleeps amongst the trees. Led by the female, the breeding pair partakes in vigorous bouts of singing in the morning, which hauntingly echo through the forest. These ‘duets' are believed to be essential in pair bond formation and reinforcement, and also serve to advertise the presence of the group within the territory. A single young is born every two to three years and the infant is usually weaned once it reaches two years old;
Black crested gibbons feed preferentially on ripe, sugar-rich fruit, such as figs, but occasionally consume vitamin-rich leaf buds, and rarely eat animals.
Read more about this topic: Black Crested Gibbon
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“The inability to control our children’s behavior feels the same as not being able to control it in ourselves. And the fact is that primitive behavior in children does unleash primitive behavior in mothers. That’s what frightens mothers most. For young children, even when out of control, do not have the power to destroy their mothers, but mothers who are out of control feel that they may destroy their children.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Children can’t make their own rules and no child is happy without them. The great need of the young is for authority that protects them against the consequences of their own primitive passions and their lack of experience, that provides with guides for everyday behavior and that builds some solid ground they can stand on for the future.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)