Apes: India
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Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary, Assam
2026: bridges
Prabin.Kalita, May 16, 2026: The Times of India
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From: Prabin.Kalita, May 16, 2026: The Times of India
Guwahati : For decades, railway tracks running through Assam’s Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary did not just carry trains. It cut the forest canopy into two, turning treetop paths into dead ends and splitting families of Western Hoolock Gibbon, the only ape species native to India, inside their only home in the country. International Union for Conservation of Nature’s lists these apes among endangered species.
Gibbons live almost entirely above ground, moving through the upper canopy with brachiation — swinging by their arms in long, fluid arcs. Where the trees stop, their world stops. The rail corridor created a gap they could not safely cross, forcing groups on either side into isolation and leaving a small pocket of families stranded away from the larger population.
The story changed on Friday after a male gibbon was recorded crossing newly installed canopy bridges with safety nets over the railway tracks, bringing hope not just for the apes but many other canopy-dwelling animals. “This is the first confirmed use by a gibbon in the sanctuary — and the first documented use of a canopy bridge structure over a railway line anywhere in the world,” Wildlife Institute of India (WII) said.
The canopy bridges are semi-circular structures made of mountaineering-grade ropes and pipes, wrapped with safety nets on the sides and bottom. Tied to the tallest trees on two sides, the canopies have been designed by WII and put in place by the state forest department.
The sanctuary is spread across an area of 20.98sqkm and is home to around 125 gibbons. Gibbons are primarily monogamous and live in small family groups of up to six closely related individuals.
The canopy bridges were designed and deployed on the single-track Lumding–Dibrugarh railway line during Feb–March 2025, a stretch that has been slicing through Hollongapar since 1887. In a report released in May 2023, WII said the broad-gauge, electrified single track of about 1.65km long fragmented the sanctuary into two unequal parts, adding to threats already faced by the Gibbons, such as shrinking forests, tea cultivation, human encroachment, and illegal trade.
WII highlighted just how fragmented the Gibbon population at Hollongapar became. Around 26 family groups live within the sanctuary, but the railway line split the habitat into two unequal compartments. On one side, in the much smaller group, only four to five families survive. With no substantial canopy connectivity across the tracks, these families have remained effectively isolated for decades from the larger population on the other side. Union environment minister Bhupendra Yadav praised the canopy effort, calling it “tech-led conservation” and proof that “science-led small-scale efforts can also be of great help in biodiversity conservation”.
Kapi Ramnagarensis
Summary
By Ruchika Uniyal, The Times of India
Tooth helps find ape species that roamed India 13m years ago
An international team of researchers has discovered a new ape species — ancestor of the modern-day gibbon — which lived in north India 13 million years ago after they stumbled upon a fossilised tooth sticking in dirt in the hills of Jammu & Kashmir. After a series of tests and analysis determined that the fossil — a complete lower molar measuring about 7mm in length — belonged to a previously unknown genus and species, researchers named it Kapi ramnagarensis. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Details from Sci News.com
Named Kapi ramnagarensis, the new primate species lived approximately 12.5-13.8 million years ago (Middle Miocene epoch) and was distinct from all other known fossil apes.
Its complete lower molar was collected in 2015 from the Lower Siwaliks of Ramnagar in Jammu and Kashmir, India.
It represents the first new hominoid species discovered at the Ramnagar site in nearly a century and the first new Siwalik ape species in more than three decades.
“We knew immediately it was a primate tooth, but it did not look like the tooth of any of the primates previously found in the area,” said lead author Dr. Christopher Gilbert, a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at Hunter College of the City University of New York and the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.
“From the shape and size of the molar, our initial guess was that it might be from a gibbon ancestor, but that seemed too good to be true, given that the fossil record of lesser apes is virtually nonexistent.”
“There are other primate species known during that time, and no gibbon fossils have previously been found anywhere near Ramnagar.”
“So we knew we would have to do our homework to figure out exactly what this little fossil was.”
Dr. Gilbert and colleagues photographed and CT-scanned the specimen and compared it with teeth of living and extinct apes.
“What we found was quite compelling and undeniably pointed to the close affinities of the 13-million-year-old tooth with gibbons,” said co-author Dr. Alejandra Ortiz, a scientist in the Department of Anthropology at New York University and the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.
“Even if, for now, we only have one tooth, and thus, we need to be cautious, this is a unique discovery.”
“It pushes back the oldest known fossil record of gibbons by at least 5 million years, providing a much-needed glimpse into the early stages of their evolutionary history.”
The age of the fossil is contemporaneous with well-known great ape fossils, providing evidence that the migration of great apes, including orangutan ancestors, and lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) from Africa to Asia happened around the same time and through the same places.
“We found the biogeographic component to be really interesting,” said co-author Dr. Chris Campisano, a researcher in the Institute of Human Origins and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
“Today, gibbons and orangutans can both be found in Sumatra and Borneo in Southeast Asia, and the oldest fossil apes are from Africa.”
“Knowing that gibbon and orangutan ancestors existed in the same spot together in northern India 13 million years ago, and may have a similar migration history across Asia, is pretty cool.”
The discovery of Kapi ramnagarensis is reported in a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
