francoislangurAustralia’s Taronga Zoo is celebrating an extremely rare birth of an exotically named Francois Langur monkey. The arrival last week of the bright orange baby – dubbed the “world’s cutest monkey” – stunned zookeepers who hadn’t even been certain her mother was pregnant.

The tiny baby female, called Elke, is currently being hand-reared by primate keepers after being rejected by his mother, Saigon – although Taronga’s general manager, Cameron Kerr, said Saigon’s reaction was not uncommon.

“This is outstanding news for species, although the mother, Saigon, has not accepted the baby. Taronga is the only zoo in Australasia caring for Francois Langurs,” Kerr said.

“As a first-time mother, Saigon’s reaction to the infant is not uncommon, but Taronga’s keepers were prepared and are managing the difficult process of hand-raising the young langur to maintain an insurance population in world zoos as the species faces the real risk of extinction in the wild.

Conservationists estimate there may be fewer than 1,000 Francois Langurs left in the wild in their native Vietnam and China due to habitat loss caused by deforestation and the threat from poachers.

The leaf-eating monkeys, famed for their acrobatic skills, are named after Monsieur Francois, an official at the French consul in Lungchow, China, who first studied the creatures.

Adult langurs are black but infants initially have bright orange fur to help their parents identify them in dim forest light.

Kerr said it would be months before Elke was put on public display. “There are no guarantees that the hand-raising efforts will succeed but we have to try,” she said. “Everyone here has their fingers crossed for success.”

Elke’s birth is the second breeding triumph for Taronga in recent months following the recent births of the zoo’s first baby meerkats in nine years.

Click here for more photos of Elke.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under Conservation, Cute, Monkeys, Primates, Zoos, babies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.