The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Touch and go for slender loris

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Touch and go for slender loris

Divya Gandhi

Bangalore: It has been described as one of the world’s weirdest animals. The slender loris, known as kaadupapa in Kannada, indeed looks like something of a cross between a koala bear and an extraterrestrial — but this diminutive, large-eyed nocturnal creature is in fact a monkey, the smallest primate in India. And as unlikely as it might seem, this shy inhabitant of the tropical forests of the Western and Eastern Ghats has found itself a precarious home in this bustling metropolis.

Bangalore has a population of over 100 slender loris, which inhabit its few and fast disappearing green pockets, says Sindhu Radhakrishna, Fellow at the School of Natural and Engineering Sciences, at National Institute of Advanced Studies. Ms. Radhakrishna has made the endangered loris the subject of her research for several years.

“There are at least three pockets in Bangalore where we still find it. The IISc. has a population of 20, the University of Agricultural Sciences has 50 and areas on Kanakapura Road have another 50-odd individuals,” she said.

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