Depending on their habitat, about 60-75% of a gibbon’s diet is fruit.
They’re always on the move to find enough to eat, visiting trees just as the fruit ripens. They also eat twigs, tree bark, tender plant shoots, leaves, seeds, insects, spiders, flowers – and sometimes birds’ eggs and even small birds.
Gibbon groups often meet at the edges of their home ranges, and when they do, there can be a fight. To make sure their own family has enough to eat, they have to defend their resources from others, so losing areas of forest to logging and agriculture makes these fights more frequent and more desperate.
Expert opinion
Jayashree: The gibbon forest of Assam is home to a massive collection of folk medicinal plants. This makes the forest prone to wood poaching, thereby destroying the wildlife. This affects the movement of groups, creating a lot of tension between groups to maintain their territory. Sometimes such tension results in severe fights which can even be fatal, and this increases my fear for them and their existence.Read more in MEET THE EXPERTS