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Encounters with wildlife can be precious opportunities for us urbanites to get to know more about the wild residents in Singapore and for us to learn how to co-exist with them harmoniously.

Some children living in Tanglin Halt were surprised by a peculiar looking mammal recently.

It was a colugo hugging onto the trunk of a tree, at a level that is much lower than usual.

Colugos are shy and nocturnal creatures that look like flying lemurs, but they are actually not lemurs.

They are in fact found to be more closely related to primates, a group which includes apes and humans.

The colugos you see in Singapore are likely Malayan colugos, native to this region. They are usually found in forested areas.

Colugos are often found clinging onto tree trunks and their mottled grey fur allows them to camouflage against the tree trunk well.

They can't fly but they can expand their membranous skin flaps to glide from tree to tree.

A surprise appearance of a colugo excites children at Tanglin Halt

According to local film director, Charmaine Yap, who posted about this incident on her Instagram, one young resident discovered this colugo on March 31.

While this is not the first time the child had spotted this colugo in the area, it was holding onto the trunk much closer to the ground that evening.

At around 8pm, Yap walked past the area and saw a man and the child discussing the colugo.

The wildlife enthusiast and her husband then contacted Acres wildlife rescue team for help.

Acres co-CEO Kalai Vanan told Mothership that the wildlife rescue team decided to rescue the colugo because it was in an unusual spot -- right smack in the middle of an HDB estate.

"As we felt the colugo may not be able to find its way out of the estate and flora variety was little in the place where it was, we decided to rescue the elusive animal and relocate to a better environment."

The team could not attend to this case immediately as they were attending to two other cases that evening.

While waiting for Acres to arrive, more children playing in the neighbourhood were excited by the sight of this wide-eyed creature.

They asked various questions about the colugo which Yap and her husband patiently answered.

And kids being kids, they created a commotion which scared the colugo off.

The colugo glided to another tree and rested at a higher level.

But it was not too long for the children to learn to stay quiet while observing the shy wild animal.

Joining Acres in the rescue effort

Yap's Instagram story showed how engrossed the children were when Acres arrived at the scene and embarked on the rescue effort.

The residents also helped to fix the net that the Acres volunteers used to capture the animal.

Yap gave the children a short briefing of what was about to happen and also participated in the rescue effort by helping to shine a light on the tree to help the Acres rescuers locate the colugo.

The shy mammal sought shelter near the top of a palm tree and the whole rescue effort took less than 15 minutes, Yap shared with Mothership.

Here's a video showing how high up on the palm tree the colugo went:

Post-rescue mission lesson

Yap mentioned that she really appreciated how Kalai took the time to sit the children down and answered all the burning questions they had about colugo.

According to Yap, Kalai also reiterated how making too much noise would stress the shy animal, and the children, despite being extremely excited, heeded his advice well.

Speaking to Mothership, Kalai said:

"Apart from slowly guiding the animal down which was very high up on a tree, the rescue was also a great opportunity for us to talk to the kids there to explain more about the little known animal."

In addition to the colugo, Acres also brought an injured sunbird back to their facility which the residents also noticed and picked it up that evening.

Reflecting on the incident which lasted about three hours, Yap said that it was really heartening to see the children learning how to be considerate to the wild animals through this incident.

She also highlighted the importance for more people in Singapore to learn about our wild residents as not all animals are dangerous.

"I think it's really nice to have wildlife coexisting with urbanites if the area has what it needs to survive, if people understand that not all wildlife are dangerous or 'poisonous' and if people know how to respect them. And that only comes with knowledge and effort in reading up about them.

Some neighbours who came down to see the commotion asked if the colugo is poisonous or dangerous 🥲, so that was a good opportunity to share with them what a Colugo is and how it is harmless, [there is] no need to be hostile towards it.

But what made my heart the fullest is how receptive the kids were to being considerate of the animal."

If you see a a wild animal that needs help, you can call the Acres wildlife rescue hotline at 9783 7782 or NParks' 24-hour Animal Response Centre helpline at 1800 476 1600.

Top photos courtesy of Charmaine Yap.

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