Langur

Langur, one of the two Hindu names (the other being hanuman) of the sacred Indian monkey scientifically known as Semnopithecus entellus, and hence sometimes called the entellus monkey. A prodigiously long tail, beetling eyebrows with long black hairs, black ears, face, feet and hands, and a general greyish-brown colour of the fur are the distinctive characteristics of the langur. These monkeys roam at will in the bazaars of Hindu cities, where they help themselves freely from the stores of the grain-dealers, and they are kept in numbers at the great temple in Benares. In a zoological sense the term is extended to embrace all the monkeys of the Asiatic genus Semnopithecus, which includes a large number of species, ranging from Ceylon, India and Kashmir to southern China and the Malay countries as far east as Borneo and Sumatra. These monkeys are characterized by their lank bodies, long slender limbs and tail, well-developed thumbs, absence of cheek-pouches, and complex stomachs. They feed on leaves and young shoots.

(R. L.*)