Hikers spot ‘orange-red eye shine’ in tree — and find at-risk creature in India
Walking through a darkened forest in southeastern India, hikers swept their flashlights across the branches looking for a “characteristic orange-red eye shine.” They eventually spotted it perched in the canopy: a “cryptic” primate.
It turned out to be a first-of-its-kind sighting.
A team of biologists and wildlife rangers visited Aranya Forest and Sanctuary on the outskirts of Puducherry in fall 2024, according to an April 26 study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Threatened Taxa. The sanctuary spanned 100 acres and included “a restored man-made forest,” home to several “rare mammals.”
Researchers suspected the forest might also be home to a “cryptic” primate known as a Mysore slender loris, the study said.
The Mysore slender loris, or Loris lydekkerianus, is a “solitary,” nocturnal primate species that lives in forest canopies and “uses acrobatic postures to catch insects like ants and termites,” researchers said. The species is considered near threatened because of “habitat loss, fragmentation, poaching, and trapping.”
To search for the primate, researchers spent hours walking through the Aranya Forest and Sanctuary at night, using flashlights “to detect the characteristic orange-red eye shine of the slender loris.”
Their efforts paid off.
One night, the team spotted a Mysore slender loris eating some prey, the study said. They watched it for about 20 minutes. It “appeared calm” and continued capturing its insect prey.
Another night, the team spotted two lorises. One loris was seen rapidly moving all its limbs, “probably looking for prey,” researchers said.
A photo shows one of the Mysore slender lorises perched on a branch. Its fur has a yellow-gray tint and its eyes appear relatively large.
“This was the first sighting of slender lorises near Puducherry” and “provides valuable data on their distribution range, and habitat use in the restored forests,” the study said.
Puducherry, also known as Pondicherry, is a city along the southeastern coast of India and a roughly 1,550-mile drive southeast of New Delhi.
Researchers suggested further wildlife surveys and “continued monitoring” of the region’s slender lorises.
The research team included Shanmugam Mani, P. Aravind Aathi, K. Sivakumar, Aurosylle Bystrom and D. Saravanan.
This story was originally published April 29, 2025 at 12:48 PM with the headline "Hikers spot ‘orange-red eye shine’ in tree — and find at-risk creature in India."
