Vikram's viral Lar Gibbon video triggers wildlife possession probe

A famous movie actor named Vikram made a video playing with a small ape called a Lar Gibbon.

The ape sat on him and fiddled with his hair while the camera rolled.

Many people watched the video on Instagram, and some got upset because this ape is rare and protected by law.

Forest officers, who look after forests and wild animals, started checking how the gibbon came to be in a private home in Chennai.

The Lar Gibbon is endangered and normally lives in Southeast Asian forests, not in India.

Papers show eight gibbons were declared in Manipur in 2020, with Malaysia listed as their home country.

Later, three gibbons were supposed to be with a man in Erode, but officers only found two there.

A female gibbon reportedly died, and the rules say that kind of death must be reported to the officers.

Now officers are checking whether anyone broke the rules for keeping, moving, and reporting these protected animals.