Arun Rangsi Starts His 20th Year With IPPL

by Shirley McGreal
April 2001

Arun Rangsi (formerly HLA-98) was the first retired research gibbon to reach IPPL Headquarters. He arrived in 1981, so the year 2001 marks this delightful animal's 20th year with us. We thought you'd like to know more about the life history of this small ape who is loved by all our staff and by many of our members, some of whom even send him birthday gifts and cards.

HLA-98 (now Arun Rangsi) spent the first two years of his life in a laboratory at Davis, California, USA. He has spent the past 20 years with IPPL. In the laboratory he was sickly. Since coming to IPPL, he has never had a day's illness.

Arun Rangsi in his shipping crate

Arun Rangsi belongs to the white-handed gibbon species. This species can come in two colors - black or beige. All have light colored rings round their faces and light patches on their hands ("mittens") and on their feet ("booties"). Arun Rangsi is beige in color.

Gibbons are found only in Asia. They are the smallest of the apes and excel in acrobatics. They sing beautiful songs which carry for a long distance.

Gibbon lab in California Closes

During the mid-1970s a California laboratory received grants from the US National Institutes of Health to infect gibbons with a cancer-causing virus. The laboratory collected dozens of wild-caught gibbons. Many reached the United States from Thailand via Canada, despite Thailand's ban on the export of gibbons. Some were shipped directly to California by a US military laboratory in Bangkok.

In 1980 the laboratory lost its U.S. federal funding. At the time it owned over 50 gibbons. Many were shipped off to zoos and animal dealers. IPPL received a tip-off that one young sickly gibbon might be killed. We contacted the laboratory on the animal's behalf.

We also raised funds for his care until a home was found for him. Our Thai friend Katherine Buri gave HLA-98 the Buddhist name Arun Rangsi, which means, "The Rising Sun of Dawn."

To our surprise the lab director got in touch with IPPL and asked us to "adopt" him!

HLA-98's life in the lab

IPPL has a copy of Arun Rangsi's health record in the lab.

On 9 August 1979 he was born to mother HLA and father HLA-57 and given the number HLA-98 which was tattooed in blue on his chest when he was four months old. On 15 August the baby was found on the floor of his cage with "multiple abrasions over body."

Apparently his mother had rejected him. On the day of his removal from his mother, the six day old baby was put on antibiotics and placed with a "surrogate" mother, which we learned was a lifeless swinging frame with a towel covering it.

In January 1980 HLA-98 got diarrhea. In three days his weight dropped from one kilogram to 890 grams. He was put on Lomotil and recovered.

In February 1980 he was observed to have "nasal discharge and slightly labored breathing," from which he recovered.

In March 1980 he was treated for shigella-caused diarrhea and for bronchopneumonia, which was treated with penicillin. In April a routine chest x-ray revealed possible viral pneumonia for which he was treated.

In August 1980 his weight dropped from 1.20 to 1.05 kilograms and he was placed on "supplementary feeding."

On 23 July 1981 he was examined prior to transfer to IPPL. At that time he weighed 2.2 kilograms and was pronounced fit to travel.

HLA-98 was ready to start his new life as "Arun Rangsi."

Arun Rangsi's cross-country trip

On 8 August 1980 Christine Saup, then with the Animal Protection Institute (API), went to the lab to pick up HLA-98/Arun Rangsi. API's office in Sacramento, California, is 20 miles from Davis. The tiny gibbon was actually tranquillized to move him from his living cage into his travel crate. Apparently he had a reputation as a biter!

At 8:30 in the morning I received a phone call from Christine. She was at the cargo terminal on San Francisco Airport. The gibbon was being loaded on a Delta flight which would reach Atlanta five hours later. At the time there was an ongoing strike by US air controllers and airline service was disrupted across the nation. We didn't want to risk our gibbon getting lost or delayed so I decided to drive to Atlanta to collect him.

Arun Rangsi as an adult

Unfortunately it was pouring with rain so the drive to Atlanta was a nightmare! My friendly neighbor Kit has kindly offered to accompany me to Atlanta.

We arrived at Atlanta Airport just as the Delta flight was arriving and asked the cargo official to radio the pilot and ask whether there was a gibbon on board. The pilot replied that there was no gibbon, but there was a chimpanzee on the shipping manifest. The "chimpanzee" turned out to be Arun Rangsi. Our first impression was of lustrous dark eyes peering curiously at us from his shipping crate.

Kit was sitting in the back seat with the little gibbon. He loved the grapes she offered him, but was terrified of green beans. Maybe he thought they were hypodermic syringes!

When we got home to Summerville, we started to become acquainted with our little friend. He was initially terrified of people and had a habit of constant head- banging and trying to bite. He would bang his head against glass and metal and as a result there was a big callus above his right ear.

A kind Charleston psychiatrist, the late Jerry Donovan, came to look at him and suggested that I bang my head too to "legitimize" the little fellow's behavior! It worked! Within weeks the head-banging had slowed down and our little ape friend began to trust us and our first animal caregiver hired to help him and assist with office chores. Her name was Kathy Crawford.

From the start Arun Rangsi ate well. He is still on the small side, but not abnormally small. During the 20 years he has been at IPPL, Arun Rangsi Gibbon has never been sick. He and his companion, a lab gibbon named Shanti, have lived happily together with their own gibbon family.

Soon Arun Rangsi was joined by more gibbons from a variety of environments - laboratories, private owners, defunct zoos, or gibbons unwanted because of handicaps. However, the arrival of our very first lab gibbon is a very special memory.