Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Page 61

COUNTRYSIDE, WILDLIFE & FARMING

life

Photo left to right: Fudge (Jarven Brown Languar), European Eagle Owl, Rhesus Macaques monkey

China. They have red faces and rears

and insects. Vocal communication

they may live to nine or ten years, this

with brown fur. They eat roots, fruit,

between Muellers Gibbons is important as

rising to 35 years in captivity.

seeds and bark, and like gibbons will also

it helps to maintain the bond between the

enjoy insects and small animals. They are

breeding pair.

good swimmers and will live in troops

Barn Owls are the owl that most of
us will see naturally in the wild. When

normally of 10 to 50, but have been

Snowy Owls are large white owls

sitting they have buff coloured back and

known to number two hundred. It was a

with speckled black bars or spots,

wings, but in flight look almost pure

Rhesus Macaques that beat humans into

rounded heads, yellow eyes and a black

white.

space!

bill sporting, feathered feet. They are

soundlessly over fields, riverbanks and

Found all over the island, flying

active during the day, from dusk ‘til

roadside verges. Sometimes seen in the

Muellers Gibbons is found on

dawn spending most of their time on the

day but more likely at dusk when they

the island of Borneo, in monsoon and

ground, as in their native environment

start to hunt, looking for, mice, voles and

tropical forests. They are monogamous

of the Artic or open grassland and fields

shrews.

with partners, the females tending to be

there are no trees. Their diet is mostly

more dominant over the males! They

fish, small hares, lemmings and voles.

prefer to eat fruit with a high sugar

But being opportunists will prey on many

content supplementing this with leaves

other mammals and birds. In the wild

Photo left to right: Little monkeys kiddies play area, The Siamangs enclosure.

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