About the Book
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 68. Chapters: Asian gray shrew, Asian house shrew, Banteng, Binturong, Clouded leopard, Crab-eating macaque, Fea's muntjac, Gaur, Hog badger, Indian elephant, Indian muntjac, Indochinese hog deer, Indochinese leopard, Indochinese tiger, Irrawaddy dolphin, Java mouse-deer, Kloss's mole, Kouprey, Laotian langur, Lar gibbon, Leopard cat, Lesser false vampire bat, Lesser mouse-deer, Marbled cat, Masked palm civet, Northern buffed-cheeked gibbon, Northern pig-tailed macaque, Northern treeshrew, Northern white-cheeked gibbon, Owston's palm civet, Peter's Trumpet-eared Bat, Pileated gibbon, Red panda, Sambar deer, Schomburgk's Deer, Short-tailed gymnure, Slow loris, Small-toothed palm civet, Southeast Asian shrew, Southern white-cheeked gibbon, Stump-tailed macaque, Sunda pangolin, Yellow-cheeked gibbon. Excerpt: Slow lorises are a group of several species of strepsirrhine primates which make up the genus Nycticebus. Found in South and Southeast Asia, they range from Bangladesh and Northeast India in the west to the Philippines in the east, and from the Yunnan province in China in the north to the island of Java in the south. Although many previous classifications recognized as few as a single all-inclusive species, there are now at least eight that are considered valid: the Sunda slow loris (N. coucang), Bengal slow loris (N. bengalensis), pygmy slow loris (N. pygmaeus), Javan slow loris (N. javanicus), Bornean slow loris (N. menagensis), N. bancanus, N. borneanus, and N. kayan. The group's closest relatives are other lorisids, such as slender lorises, pottos, false pottos, and angwantibos. They are also closely related to the remaining lorisoids (the various types of galago), as well as the lemurs of Madagascar. Their evolutionary history is uncertain since their fossil record is patchy and molecular clock studies have given inconsistent results. Slow lorises have a round head, narrow snout, large eyes, and a variety of distinctive coloration patterns that are species-dependent. Their arms and legs are nearly equal in length, and their trunk is long, allowing them to twist and extend to nearby branches. The hands and feet of slow lorises have several adaptations that give them a pincer-like grip and enable them to grasp branches for long periods of time. Slow lorises have a toxic bite, a trait rare among mammals and unique to lorisid primates. The toxin is produced by licking a gland on their arm, and the secretion mixes with its saliva to activate it. Their toxic bite is a deterrent to predators, and the toxin is also applied to the fur during grooming as a form of protection for their infants. They move slowly and deliberately, making little or no noise, and when threatened, they freeze and become docile. Their only documented predators-apart from humans-include snakes,
