Pixie

Pixie, This now Large Langur was rescued by one of IAR’s ambulances and taken to the centre at Assagao when they received a message to say a female Langur Monkey had been killed on a busy road , and its baby was still alive, clinging to its mother’s dead body. We were later informed that the mother had been killed at least two days before and everyone had just been walking past.

He was in a critical state by the time he reached the Tree House and it was touch and go as to whether he would survive. Being orphaned ,he was put in Jo’s care as a substitute mother.His distress and terror was so obvious and her attempts to console him so futile for the first 12 hours or so, that Jo was beginning to consider that it might be kinder to put him to sleep before he died of fright. Eventually however, he began to accept her coming near his cage without turning into a screaming, gasping heap and by the middle of the night was accepting being cuddled in a towel and was even licking milk from her finger. He was named “Pixie” due to his extraordinary ears. In the end he accepted a bottle but this was after much difficulty.

Gradually he tried different foods and was soon confident enough to go out into the garden on a long lead to choose his own leaves. This turned into another crisis when he unknowingly ate something toxic which caused his mouth and tongue to swell dramatically for 24 hrs. Obviously he was at a big disadvantage as he didnt have a sensible mother to show him what’s edible and what should be avoided.

For almost a year and a half he slept in Jo and John’s bedroom mainly because he did not realize he was a monkey as at that time we had no other Langur monkeys for him to mix with.

Langurs are the largest species of monkeys in India. They are leaf eating, tree dwelling and known for their agility. They don’t usually voluntarily swim, but Pixie enjoyed playing on the orange life belts in the swimming pool and occasionally fell in the water. They are generally shyer and have less contact with humans than macaques.

Another problem is the troop of wild Langurs that already live in the area of the Tree House. In the wild any Langurs from a rival troop in another’s territory would be killed or at the very least chased from the area.

The usual Langurs greeting is in a high pitched scream with bared teeth, this has given several people a real fright, as Pixie is now so big!

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