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A hiker recently encountered a pair of parent and young colugos by a reservoir in Singapore.
The adorable bug-eyed creatures were enjoying a tender moment, with the baby colugo nestled in the arms of the parent colugo who was perched upside down.
Photo by Samuel Nicholas Chu via Singapore Wildlife Sightings's Facebook page.
Speaking to Mothership, Samuel Nicholas Chu shared that the mother colugo was grooming its baby when he first chanced upon them.
At one point, the baby colugo can be seen licking the older colugo squarely on the lips.
Photo by Samuel Nicholas Chu via Singapore Wildlife Sightings's Facebook page.
In another shot, the parent colugo was hugging its baby closer to its chest while licking its lips and staring at the camera.
"Excuse me, are you spying on us?" Photo by Samuel Nicholas Chu via Singapore Wildlife Sightings's Facebook page.
The baby colugo eventually joined its parent in the staredown with the camera, looking cute with its head peeking out from the pouch.
"Two can play that game." Photo by Samuel Nicholas Chu via Singapore Wildlife Sightings's Facebook page.
According to Chu, a pair of tourists and several families who noticed him looking at the treetops were also present to witness this adorable sight.
When speaking to Mothership, Chu also shared his appreciation for the green spaces in Singapore and urged hikers to be considerate while enjoying nature at these places:
"It’s nice to be traipsing through our own garden city and I truly appreciate the arduous work that NParks has been doing in building up conducive environments for our beautifully wild, reclusive, minuscule, ostentatious, feathered, scaled and furry friends. Hikes and nature photography help foster appreciation of our natural world; but it’s good to be patient and more gracious, to all we meet along the way; observe a little trail discipline, leave-no-trace and minimise noise disturbance as we take in these sojourns into the parks and green spaces of Singapore. With hope, our kids, and even our elders, come to understand that the environment needs our care and stewardship, and our actions, big and small, affect many, in and around our habitats."
Not a squirrel
Some people who have seen these creatures have likened them to a pancake, wet chapati, fly bak kwa, or even a type of seafood.
So, what exactly is a colugo?
It's neither a squirrel nor some sort of arboreal (tree-dwelling) cat.
Instead, their closest evolutionary relatives are primates. Although they are occasionally called flying lemurs due to their physical resemblance, colugos are not actually lemurs.
Colugos travel from tree to tree by gliding — they can reach distances of up to 70m this way without losing much altitude.
Extremely awkward and vulnerable on the ground, they are often found clinging to a tree in the wild.
In Chu's photographs, the thin membrane, which helps the animal glide, helps to hold the baby colugo on the parent's abdomen.
The species native to Singapore is the Malayan Colugo, they mostly reside in or near the Central Catchment Nature Reserve.
Photo by Samuel Nicholas Chu via Singapore Wildlife Sightings's Facebook page.
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Top image by Samuel Nicholas Chu via Singapore Wildlife Sightings's Facebook page.