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The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has earmarked funds to construct canopy bridges for India’s only ape to move across a railway track bifurcating its prime habitat in eastern Assam.
A 1.65-km-long track — set to be doubled and electrified — divides the 2,098.62-hectare Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary in Jorhat district.
The sanctuary has the largest concentration of the Hoolock gibbon, one of 20 species of apes on earth
Gibbon
The gibbon, known for its vocalisation, spends much of its time on the upper canopy of tall trees, mostly the hollong (Dipterocarpus macrocarpus).
Gibbons are apes in the family Hylobatidae
The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species.
Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforests from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast India to southern China and Indonesia
Also called the lesser apes, gibbons differ from great apes (bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans) in being smaller, exhibiting low sexual dimorphism, and not making nests.
Like all apes, gibbons are tailless.
They are smallest and fastest of all apes
Unlike most of the great apes, gibbons frequently form long-term pair bonds.
Their primary mode of locomotion, brachiation, involves swinging from branch to branch
Gibbons are included in the CITES Appendix I list
International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List:
Western Hoolock Gibbon: Endangered
Eastern Hoolock Gibbon: Vulnerable.
Also, both the species are listed on Schedule 1 of the Indian (Wildlife) Protection Act 1972
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