White-cheeked Gibbon
Nomascus leucogencys

White-cheeked gibbons are one of eleven species of gibbon and critically endangered. These long-armed apes are made for life in the trees, suspending their bodies and swinging easily from one hold to another. Instead of grasping, their hands form a loose hook around branches, allowing them to move swiftly through the canopy.

What They Eat
Hanging suspended from even the thinnest branches, gibbons are able to reach their favorite food: fruit. Figs and other fruit make up most of their diet, but they will sometimes eat leaves, buds, flowers, and occasionally insects, eggs, and young birds.

Where They Live
Seldom coming to the ground, these small apes prefer the upper canopy of their lowland rainforest habitat in Laos, Vietnam, and extreme southeastern China. With long arms, they swing effortlessly from branch to branch, as if on a treetop highway.

What They Do
Gibbons live in small family groups made up of a mated pair and their young offspring. Early in the morning, the group often “sings” in unison to claim their feeding area. Instead of physical conflict, the adult pair defends its territory with a loud vocal duet that can be heard for miles through the forest.

How They’re Doing
White-cheeked gibbons are critically endangered. Their habitat is disappearing due to logging. Poaching and capturing young gibbons for the illegal wildlife trade also threaten their survival.

White-cheeked Gibbon

Gibbons are not monkeys, they’re small apes. Apes don’t have tails while monkeys do. They also have a flatter, more human-like face, larger bodies, and their young develop more slowly than other primates.

White-cheeked gibbons “sing” to announce their presence to neighboring gibbon families and to strengthen their own family bonds. These “great calls” are a family affair, with the adult pair singing in a loud, melodic duet and their juvenile offspring joining in to practice the song.

It’s easy to tell who’s who with an adult pair of White-cheeked gibbons. As with three other species of gibbons, the males and females are different colors. Male White-cheeked gibbons are black with white cheek patches, while females are buff with a black spot on the top of the head.

When White-cheeked gibbons are infants, they are colored to match mom, which is fairly effective camouflage. When they reach six months of age, they turn black like their dad. Females turn back to buff when they reach maturity.

Helpful hints for viewing the animals

A couple of times each day our white-cheeked gibbons can be heard singing. If you are anywhere in the Tropics building at the time, you can’t miss it! The call is an elaborate duet sung by male and female gibbons, and is crucial to maintaining the pair bond and defending their territory. The gibbons often sing shortly after going on exhibit at 9 am. So on your next visit get here early and enjoy the concert!

White-cheeked Gibbon

Care at the Zoo

Enrichment enhances the well-being of zoo animals by stimulating natural behaviors and giving animals the opportunity to react to changes in their environment. Introducing new foods, smells, sights, sounds, or objects into their exhibit are all ways to provide enrichment. When designing enrichment programs, zookeepers look at the behaviors and abilities unique to each species and how each species interacts with its natural environment.

Primates are generally highly social animals and interacting with their own species is essential to their mental well-being. In addition to their social interactions as a pair, the zoo’s gibbons share their exhibit with several species of birds. This provides them with extra stimulation as they share space with animals just as they would in the wild.

In the wild, gibbons spend a lot of time foraging for food. Keepers provide dietary enrichment by supplementing the gibbons' main diet with novel food items. The gibbons are given yogurt covered raisins, dried fruits, cereals, and special treats like “monkey brownies,” “gibbon patties,” and “gibbon cupcakes.” Other stimulating foods include: willow or bamboo branches, jelly, applesauce, oatmeal paste smeared on branches in their exhibit, and healthy popsicles made with juice blends.
 
Both gibbons respond with more excitement when their food treats are hidden. Keepers hide food in things like paper bags, boxes, toilet paper tubes, tooth brush holders, and special puzzle feeders to encourage foraging behaviors.

Training provides mental stimulation for the animals and helps to reduce stress associated with moves or vet check-ups. Tia and Bailey have both been trained by our keepers using operant conditioning techniques. When they respond correctly to a request from their trainers, favorite foods from their diet, such as bananas, figs, and grapes, are given to them as a means of reinforcing the desired behavior.

Exhibit design provides our gibbons with physical enrichment. To allow them to show off their acrobatic abilities, gibbon island is designed with branching trees and swaying vines-similar to the natural features found in their native habitat.

Primates have active minds, and our gibbons enjoy toys for human infants and toddlers (like rattles, baby keys, plastic blocks), as well as dog toys like Kongs and Holee Rollers. The zoo also purchases unique toys made just for zoo primates, some with strange names like “Astrotube Feeder” (a PVC tube covered in Astroturf ) or the “Sway N Play Feeder” (a toy that can be filled with treats and wobbles when touched).

Meet the Animals

“Bailey”

Bailey, our male gibbon, was born March 1, 1994, at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. His mother died when he was 2 years old and he continued to live with his father and a sibling until October of 2001, when at age 7, he was moved to the Minnesota Zoo.

How to recognize him:
Bailey has a black body and white cheek patches. During his morning song, he climbs to the highest point on gibbon island to ensure his voice carries as far as possible in every direction. 

Distinguishing characteristics:
Bailey is a fairly even-tempered gibbon, but not as bold as his mate Tia. For example, there is a bird on the Tropics Trail (a Bornean argus pheasant) whose call sounds similar to a gibbon alarm call. If Bailey hears it, he will often hide rather than seek to defend himself against the potential threat. Gibbons are known for their “singing,” a call designed to maintain territory and strengthen the bond between animals. As a young male new to his surroundings, Bailey didn’t call loudly like most adult male gibbons do when first arriving at the zoo. After being introduced to Tia and her mother Edith, however, he eventually found his voice. 

"Tia"

Tia is our female gibbon. She was born October 21, 1996, here at the Minnesota Zoo, and was the last offspring born to the zoo’s original pair of gibbons, Archie and Edith. (Yes, they were named after the Bunkers.) Tia’s mom was a terrific mother, having successfully reared 6 offspring, 3 males and 3 females. Unfortunately, as her mother’s last offspring, Tia was never able watch her mother give birth and care for another infant, and she never got the opportunity to baby-sit a younger sibling. This lack of maternal experience will make it more challenging for her to become a successful parent.

How to recognize her:
Like other adult female white-cheeked gibbons, Tia is easily recognized by her buff-colored body and the black “cap” on top of her head.

Distinguishing characteristics:
Tia’s parents, Archie and Edith, had personalities similar to their namesakes, characters on the popular TV series, All in the Family. Early in her development, keepers thought Tia might develop the “reactionary” temperament of her father Archie. As she matured her temperament mellowed, although she still remains more excitable than her mate Bailey. 

Together as a Pair

Bailey was originally acquired by the Minnesota Zoo in the hopes of being paired with our female Tia, who was just reaching maturity herself at the time he arrived. White-cheeked gibbons are endangered, and any offspring successfully birthed and reared in captivity is important to the conservation efforts for their species.

When Bailey was introduced to the island with Tia and her mom, Tia was very interested in him, but their relationship was more of siblings than a mated pair. After the death of Tia’s mother in the summer of 2002, Bailey began to show more breeding interest in Tia and their pair bond strengthened. 

 

Things you can do

When you shop, request wood products that are sustainably grown (FSC certified) and legally harvested. Purchase used, reclaimed, or recycled lumber whenever possible.

Don't buy exotic pets captured from the wild. Ask stores how they acquire their animals and buy only “captive bred” species.

Offer your time or money to local zoos, nature centers, or wildlife agencies that actively work to conserve rainforests and protect endangered species like White-cheeked gibbons.

Your visit to the Zoo helps support our conservation programs. You can also sponsor an animal at the Zoo.

 

 

White-cheeked Gibbon

The white-cheeked gibbon is one of the world’s most endangered species of gibbon. Major threats to this species are habitat loss due to logging, illegal hunting for use in traditional medicines, and capture of young for the pet trade. Many zoos are participating in breeding programs for white-cheeked gibbons in an effort to expand the captive population. Conservation programs in the wild are needed in order to protect the current wild population.

Things the Zoo's Done/Doing

People are working to save gibbons in Minnesota and around the world. The former Minnesota Zoo Conservation Director, Ron Tilson, spent two and a half years studying the social behavior of the Mentawai Island gibbons as part of his doctoral thesis. The focus of his research was how gibbon families form and how their unique calls help families bond and maintain their territories.

The Minnesota Zoo is a member of the Gibbon Species Survival Plan (SSP), which manages all species of gibbons in North American zoos. When the zoo opened in 1978, its first gibbon pair had been orphaned in the wild, still a common fate for young gibbons. Representing wild genes, they were very important to increasing gene diversity in zoos. Sine 1981, this pair has successfully birthed 4 gibbons that have gone into the SSP pool. Their legacy lives on through cooperative breeding efforts in zoos across the country.

Conservation Notes

The gibbons at the zoo are certainly entertaining but they also are ambassadors for their species. All species of gibbon are listed as endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the IUCN Redlist. The major threats to gibbon populations in the wild are habitat loss and poaching. Because of their territorial habitats, gibbons require large areas in which to live. It is also thought that family territories are passed down through gibbon generations. Despite regulations against it, gibbons are poached for meat and for body parts used in traditional East Asian medicines. Young gibbons are also captured illegally for the pet trade.

White-cheeked Gibbon

Gibbons are small arboreal apes that live in the upper canopy of the lowland rainforests of Southeast Asia. The white-cheeked gibbon is one of eleven species of gibbons and one of the most endangered. Well adapted for life in the forest, these long-armed primates swing effortlessly from branch to branch, and are one of the fastest and most acrobatic of all tree-dwelling primates.

Adult males and females are easily distinguished by color. Males are all black with white cheek patches, while females are buff or cream-colored with a black spot on the top of the head. All baby white-cheeked gibbons are buff color like their mother’s body. By their first birthday both males and females turn black. It is not until maturity that females once again change color back to buff.

Range and Habitat
White-cheeked gibbons are found in the tropical and evergreen rain forests of Laos, Vietnam, and southern China at altitudes of up to 4,920 feet. In the wild, major species of gibbons are isolated by large rivers due to their fear of crossing bodies of water.

Diet
White-cheeked gibbons eat mostly ripe fruits, leaves, buds, small insects, and young birds and eggs (rarely). Families feed together, mainly in the upper and middle levels of the rainforest canopy and very rarely come to the ground.

Habits and Adaptations
Gibbons move through the canopy using a form of locomotion called brachiation, in which they swing from tree limb to tree limb using only their arms. Long arms and hands bent in a hook shape enable them brachiate at speeds of nearly 35 mph and cover as much as 20 feet between each swing. When walking upright, they hold their arms up or out to the sides for balance.

Reproduction
Gibbons live in small family groups usually consisting of 1 male, 1 female, and 1-4 immature offspring. One young is born every 2-3 years after a gestation period of  7.5 months, and carefully cared for by both parents. Like most apes, gibbon young mature slowly. Males and females are forced out of the family territory when they reach 6-7 years.

Communication
These small apes vigorously defend their territory from other gibbon families through loud, melodic vocalizations or “songs.” The males and females begin each day in the early morning with an alternating duet, which is also believed to strengthen the bond between the pair. These "concerts" or "great calls" can be heard from 1 mile away.