Siamangs have slender bodies and lightweight bones for some serious swinging. These small, or lesser, apes are in the same scientific family as gibbons. Siamangs are the largest and darkest of the gibbon species and are well suited for life in a forest’s treetops. Yet there are some features on their hands and feet that make siamangs different from their gibbon brethren. Find out more!

They’re usually found in the trees at a height of 80 to 100 feet (25 to 30 meters) in Malaysia and Indonesia. Their furry bodies are black (both males and females), they don’t have tails, and they have a large gray or pink throat sac that inflates when they call.

Unlike great apes, siamangs do not build nests, because they sleep sitting upright in the fork of a tree, usually alone but sometimes huddled together.

More than half of the siamang’s diet in the wild consists of fruit. They also eat leaves and the occasional protein snack, which might include small birds or their eggs, spiders, and insects.

In the wild, siamangs might travel up to a mile (1.6 kilometers) in a day. And when they’re not swinging through the trees, travel is on dry land (siamangs cannot swim and avoid the water). On the rare occasions they do choose ground travel, they walk on two legs, holding their arms over their heads for balance.