From the archive record
A Gray Langur from Uttarakhand fetches a cauliflower from inside a polythene bag and goes a high wall to relish it. Langurs are usually plant-eaters and usually live on the moisture from the food they eat. Gray langurs are primarily herbivores. However, unlike some other colobines they do not depend on leaves and leaf buds of herbs, but will as eat also coniferous needles and cones, fruits and fruit buds, evergreen petioles, shoots and roots, seeds, grass, bamboo, fern rhizomes, mosses, and lichens. Leaves of trees and shrubs rank at the top of preferred food, followed by herbs and grasses. Non-plant material consumed include spider webs, termite mounds and insect larvae. They forage on agricultural crops and other human foods, and even accept handouts. Although they occasionally drink, la