A primate with a lion's tail

The leaf blades festooned with tiny ice beads slowly transformed into droplets with the gentle warmth of the sun. Little beetles struggling to walk on these leaves disoriented these subtle drop patterns. Dainty heads of the wild daisy with their decompound leaves carpeting the grassy path were all the welcoming signs as we headed towards the peak. The hill was indeed an epitome of patience, taking care of her own minuscule of native trees and also giving equal space without any partiality to the monocultures of tea by sacrificing her own indigenous vegetation. The handsome blooms of tea, enthralling colors of dipterocarps and trilly calls of the bee-eaters remind us of their harmonious living.

With all of these sightings we progressed on the peak, just accomplished quarter way through, the dead logs of wood at a corner putout a podium of fungus, the hue on their caps, the structure of their stalks and color of their spores all tell us that nature is the finest architect, this statement is further confirmed by the cobwebs of the funnel spiders. Every step in nature has something to tell and teach us, with this in our minds we stepped further. We had reached to such a place on the peak from where we could underlook the tea estates. I was dumbstruck by this view and went completely submissive under nature's mightiness. Little did I know that someone was watching me until I heard the nearby dipterocarp tree susurrate. I turned towards the noise and was enlivened to see an anthropoid primate that was fully black with honey-colored hair all over his face resembling the mane of a lion and a tail that was short yet sturdy, biologists were right in naming these primates as the lion-tailed macaques. But the one I saw was a bit unruly and scary, maybe he was cut off from his birth troop and was worried on make a living and a family from the dense yet competitive jungle. He witnessed me as a threat and his face grimace definitely gave me an inkling that he wasn't comfortable with me being so close to him. I slowly receded and hid behind a huge stone and saw him from a distance, he was continually tearing the leaves, chewing the tender foliage and spitting it out, juddered the branches and marching up and down the branch. I have always known these primates living in a social troop, but it was strange to see this loner. I was sure he would figure out his way, I just gazed him one last time and moved away. I walked back to the vehicle thinking "life is hard for every living being".

Picture Courtesy: Travel Triangle

Know More about the Animal:

1. Out of the 8 discovered (Long-tailed, Bonnet, Rhesus, Arunachal, Assamese, Stump-tailed, Northern pig-tailed and Lion-tailed) Macaque species of India. The Lion-tailed macaque is a handsome monkey endemic (Seen only at particular biogeography) to the central and southwestern ghat ranges. It is seen in dense evergreen forests, fruits and seeds make up majority of their diet, it is also reported that they feed on insects, meat and eggs occasionally. 

2. The best place to sight them includes Silent-valley National park if you are lucky enough you can see them in any evergreen forests above 500-1200 MSL elevation within their endemism spot. They are highly social with troop sizes ranging from 7-40 members.

3. They along with the Great Hornbill are called "The gardeners of the forests". They are known to disperse the seeds of many indigenous forest trees of the SouthWestern ghats like Artocarpus heterophyllus, Toona ciliata and Cullenia exarillata etc. However, habitat loss and forest fragmentation has narrowed down their home range pushing them to the endangered status of IUCN red list. 

4. What exactly is a macaque? How are they different from Langurs? Macaques and langurs are both old world monkeys ( Monkeys that live in Asia and Africa, those that resemble apes) Macaques have cheek pouches (Thus they can gobble up all the 4 bananas one gives them and one can see their cheeks swollen) and a relatively short tail (except for the Long-tailed, Bonnet and Assamese Macaques). Langurs on the other hand have Longtail and no cheek pouches.