What Is..... A Gibbon

I made a reference today during carpool to a Gibbon. The Queen asked, "What is a Gibbon?" I bumbled through trying to explain what a gibbon was "...something, something, larger than a monkey, not as smart as a chimpanzee, something, something..."

She then challenged me to have a weekly "What Is...." blog, so here is the first (of course she is going to have to challenge me each week with asking "what is...").

Here is a picture of a pair of Gibbons.

Gibbons are not actually monkeys, but rather members of the Ape family. They differ from great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, and humans) in being smaller, not making nests, and in certain anatomical details in which they superficially more closely resemble monkeys than great apes do. Gibbons also display pair-bonding, unlike most of the great apes. Gibbons are masters of their primary mode of locomotion, swinging from branch to branch for distances of up to 50 feet, at speeds as high as 35 mph. They can also make leaps of up to 26 feet, and walk bipedally with their arms raised for balance. They are the fastest and most agile of all tree-dwelling, non-flying mammals.

{Thank goodness for Wikipedia!!}