Gee's Golden Langur

About the Gee's Golden Langur

Gee's golden langur (Trachypithecus geei), also known as simply the golden langur, is an Old World monkey found in a small region of Western Assam, India and the neighboring foothills of the Black Mountains of Bhutan. Long considered sacred by many Himalayan people, the golden langur was first brought to the attention of the Western world by the naturalist Edward Pritchard Gee in the 1950s. Adult males have a cream to golden coat with darker flanks while the females and juveniles are lighter. The golden langur has a black face and a long tail up to 100 cm (39 in) in length. It lives in high trees and has a herbivorous diet of fruits, leaves, seeds, buds, and flowers. The average group size is eight individuals, with a ratio of several females to each adult male. It is one of the most endangered primate species of India and Bhutan.

In 2008–09, there were 6,000 golden langurs in India, which has grown to 7,396 by 2020–21. The earliest record of the golden langur is in an 1838 paper by Robert Boileau Pemberton which states that "Griffith observed these monkeys near Tongso in Central Bhutan." However, since Pemberton's work was lost and not rediscovered until... Wikipedia →