Purple-faced Langur - Diet

Diet

The purple-faced langur is mostly folivorous, but will also feed on fruits, flowers, and seeds. Within the human domesticated areas fruit such as jak (Arctocarpus heterophylus), rambutan Nephelium lappaceum, banana Musa sexpientum, and mango Mangifera indica consist up to 50% of its diet. The langur is adapted to get much of its nutrients and energy from complex carbohydrates found in leaves. This happens with the help of a highly specialized stomach that uses symbiotic bacteria to help digest food. Since its diet currently conists more heavily on cultivated fruits that are full of simple sugars instead of complex carbohydrates this could possibly change the gut fauna and its ability to absorb nutrients. Fruit in this area is also grown seasonally so the purple-faced langur could possibly be missing out on a fully complete diet during the off seasons of these fruit.

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