Dhyey Shah's Image

The tiny island of Umananda, in Assam’s Brahmaputra River, is famous for its Hindu temple patrolled by a troop of introduced golden langurs. Within moments of stepping off the boat, Dhyey captured an image of a golden langur sitting high up in a tree. The monkey briefly made eye contact and then slipped away.

With fewer than 2,500 mature adults left in the wild, the endangered golden langur clings to fragmented pockets of forest in northeast India and Bhutan. Like some other monkey species, this secretive primate has a stomach made up of compartments that allows it to break down cellulose and extract nutrients from leaves – their main food source.