THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF OXFORDSHIRE

The Aims of this Page

The aim of this section of my blog is to look into the interesting things we might learn about on our journey around West Oxfordshire and more specifically to look into the kind of animals plants and trees we might find around these parts.

As you will soon see i hope, on my google map, we are quite close the the Cotswold Wildlife Park where we can find some really interesting critters not normally found in these parts and we're not just talking about lions and the well known animals.

What is really of interest to me is that the park has a very serious mission. Among other initiatives, it is involved with breeding programmes to maintain healthy populations of rare species and is involved in both the  European Studbooks (ESB) and European Endangered Species Programmes (EEP). It holds the EEP for Lars Gibbons which are really pretty and the ESB for Red Crested Touracos. For more information about the wild life park please  double click on  link below.



http://www.cotswoldwildlifepark.co.uk/conservation/





But while we're here, lets have a look at those 2 species which the CWP is especially responsible for. First, The Lar Gibbon. please check one of them out in the photo below

A pretty fellow isn't he?

The fur colouring of the lar gibbon varies from black and dark-brown to light-brown, sandy colours.

Lar gibbons have the greatest north-south range of any of the gibbon species. They are found in Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand

Lar gibbons are usually found in lowland  mixed deciduous bamboo forest and seasonal evergreen forest and are not  usually found higher than 1200 meters above sea level. The gibbon genus is highly allopatric meaning they have developed separate genetically different populations due to being separated  by large rivers. As a result, their range extends through southern and eastern Myanmar, but only east of the Salween River. They can live with other apes including orangutans .In Thailand alone, lar gibbons probably number between 15,000 and 20,000. 

50% of the diet of the Lar Gibbon is fruit but it  also consumes many leaves insects and flowers. It will sometimes eat birds eggs.

. Lar gibbons are usually active for an average of 8.7 hours per day, leaving their sleeping sites right around sunrise and entering sleeping trees an average of 3.4 hours before sunset. On average, lar gibbons spend their days feeding (32.6%), resting (26.2%), travelling (24.2%), in social activities (11.3%), vocalising (4.0%) and in inter group encounters (1.9%), although actual proportions of activities can change significantly over the course of the year.They rarely come to the ground, instead using their long arms through the trees. With their hooked hands, they can move swiftly with great momentum, swinging from the branches. Although they rarely come to the ground naturally, while there, they walk bipedally with arms raised above their heads for balance. 

 The life expectancy of the lar gibbons in the wild is about 25 years. All of this information was downloaded from the wikipedia search engine on the main page of my blog though i will see if i can also download it onto this page as i think it will come in very useful!

OH SILLY ME - IT WAS ALREADY THERE - OH WELL