Monkeys-Plants: Is there any plant which monkeys dislike? OR doesn’t touch? or hates and never comes near of that plant?
Just I want to know. because monkey’s use to spoil all plants. it never afraid of any plants or there is no plant which they doesn’t like. There are large number of wild species not preferred or avoided by Hanuman Langurs. There is one plant – Justicia adathoda – the plants are disliked by the animals – even monkeys. Please dont mind my writing this. But, I imagine why Langurs will NOT LIKE Bombax ceiba. Good question. In fact this picture can clear the situation. I tend to agree with …. When a tree is relatively young it is armed with prickles for its protection. It tends to loose these as it grows older and in fact the largest tree I have ever seen in my life was a Red Silk Cotton tree in Periyar WLS which was totally devoid of any prickles and which seemed to be a favourite of the Giant Squirrels. Thanks … for your observations. In my region the Healers (rather natives) differentiate two types of Bombax. One with smooth trunk and other with prickled trunk. Both species exist in wild and possess different medicinal properties. Trees with rough trunk are considered rich in medicinal properties specially when used for Gynecological diseases. Natives prefer Bombax in Hanuman Langur affected areas. They show the prickles but may be some other factors responsible for less preference.
In general Monkeys are omnivorous. In my property I planted Drumstick, Seetaphal and Lemon in large area. The Hanuman Langurs preferred Drumstick and destroyed all plants as first preference. They were interested in roots.
Lemon and Annona remained unaffected for five years. Now curious young Langurs are taking interest in the Annona, For just experimentation I offered a basket of matured Seetaphal to the population but very few were interested. Lemon orchard is still free from Monkey business. But Wild Boar (Jangli Suar) is taking interest in its roots.
I understand your point …. Hanuman Langurs eat insects. Last year Babool trees in my property were infested with bark eating caterpillars. On advice of senior citizens invitation was given to Langurs to visit and enjoy. They made the trees free from caterpillars within no time. Primarily herbivores, but they are known to be involved in cannibalism. Frankly I never knew they eat insects, you should publish this information. Anyways, you know better. I just checked, there are references that already claim that langur eat insects. I have read your field notes. Like that I also share my observations through online notes I have published over 120 researcher papers, over 100 conference papers, many book chapters, 4 books and thousands of popular articles for farmers and frankly speaking tired of more publications.
I contributed 12000 documents in Botanical.com as addition to the above. It was claimed that it will not be considered as scientific publications but these documents are well quoted and mentioned in over 5000 Doctoral and Post-Doctoral thesis around the world. I have found at least 15 Ph.D. thesis in which my Botanical.com documents were copied and pasted as such without any change. I complained but seeing the future of the students taken the complaints back.
I was started publishing bit earlier. When I reached final year of under graduate I was having two publications in my credit. One on Medicinal Weeds and another on first record of blumea leaf beetle and in my post graduate answer sheets I was using my own references with much proud.
I dont think thorns are issue. They have thick skin. I have seen Langurs sitting on Zizyphus so often. They have worst thorns. Next week I will try to visit and interact the people experiencing it. I am confident that video recording will help you to convince with this logic. I want to clear there are two silk cotton trees. Bombax malabarica become thorn less at least on the main trunk (even on branches) after attaining certain size or age. In forests of Kerala and Karnataka, if we see the huge trees of B. malabarica you would confuse because they don’t have thorns. We generally see small trees in gardens and all. But in the forests there are huge trees without thorns To support … observations. Thanks a lot for the information … Your statistics are too high to match with others 🙂 what are these monkeys upto…. i cant figure it out? what do they want from this cactus? Eating obviously….. Good picture. Frankly I am not aware of this. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2002/12/19/stories/2002121900550200.htm I have no idea …. I cant think why monkeys will not like orchids, may be Dendrobium herbaceum. |