Common Langur (Presbytis entellus)

Also known as hanuman monkey, it is a long limbed, long tailed, black faced monkeys, seen as about towns and villages as in forests in India. Langurs are pure vegetarians. They eat wild fruits, flowers, buds, shoots and leaves.
They occasional pillage gardens and cultivation, but are not such habitual raiders. The inveterate enemy of langur is the leopard but on the ground they are also attacked by tigers

A conspicuous monkey, Common Langurs are widespread with 16 sub-species recognised throughout South Asia. Their range extends from as high as over 3500m in the Himalayas to the scrub forests of Western Rajasthan and throughout the deciduous forests of peninsular India. They do not inhabit evergreen forests. They are quite often seen in proximity to human habitation and are a prominent feature of some cities and many small towns throughout India.

A very arboreal monkey, Langurs spend most of their time feeding on leaves, flowers, fruits and berries. They are programmed to eat rapidly, often indiscriminately, depending upon bacteria in their fore-stomachs to break down any toxins they may have ingested. This is perhaps the reason for the wide success and distribution of this species. They also obtain salt, mineral and trace elements by licking rocks, termite mounds and salt licks. Being wasteful feeders, they drop large quantities of food to the forest floor, which is picked up by deer feeding below. This association is often considered to be symbiotic (mutualism) but studies in Kanha have shown that in the overwhelming majority of cases it is the deer that initiate the association and not the langur indicating that the benefits largely accrue to the deer and not significantly to the monkeys.

Most feeding activity takes place in the morning and late afternoon, with the monkeys resting during the hotter part of the day. At this time, troop members groom each other, and this activity serves the purpose of cleaning one other, reinforcing bonds and establishing social hierarchy.The morning activity normally commences with loud whooping calls which are also emitted in greeting or when they break out into a sudden display of high spirits or nervousness,chasing each other in tremendous leaps, bounding off tree

trunks, fallen branches and even rocks. The 'whoop' is audible over a long distance, often over a kilometre. Langur live in troops that vary from 8 - 20 animals, has a mixed composition (of all ages and sexes) and is lead by a dominant male. All male or bachelor groups are also a common feature. Males from these bachelor groups are forever on the lookout for an opportunity to challenge the dominant male of a mixed troop and take over his harem. When this happens, and the dominant male is ousted, the new male indulges in infanticide, killing unweaned infants to ensure that the females come into oestrous again, so as to propagate his own genes.

Langur troops have a home range which can vary between 1.3 sq.km to 13 sq.km. They generally have a favourite roosting tree, to which the animals retire at the end of the day. The monkeys huddle together and prefer to squat on the extremities of the branches, as a precautionary measure against predators.