A RARE newborn gibbon has been dubbed E.T. by zookeepers — thanks to his wrinkly skin, pink colouring and long fingers.

He may not be the most photogenic of creatures but he certainly looks at 'home' as he snuggles up to his mother.

The white-handed gibbon was given the Extra-Terrestrial namesake because he looks the spitting image of Steven Spielberg's world-famous alien.

One of his keepers at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo said: "He may not be a beauty but he's a very important animal as there are very few of his kind left in the world."

The white-handed gibbon — which can be found in Asian countries including China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand — is an endangered species.

Its greatest threat is the deforestation of the rain forests it inhabits ... and Government agents set on experimentation of course.

About Gibbon

Gibbons are apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genera based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates (44), Hoolock (38), Nomascus (52), and Symphalangus (50). The extinct Bunopithecus sericus is a gibbon or gibbon-like ape which, until recently, was thought to be closely related to the Hoolock gibbons. Gibbons occur in tropical and subtropical rainforests from northeast India to Indonesia and north to southern China, including the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java.

Also called the lesser apes, gibbons differ from great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans and humans) in being smaller and (other than most humans) pair-bonded, in not making nests, and in certain anatomical details in which they superficially more closely resemble monkeys than great apes do. Gibbons are masters of their primary mode of locomotion, brachiation, swinging from branch to branch for distances of up to 15 m (50 ft), at speeds as high as 56 km/h (35 mph). They can also make leaps of up to 8 m (27 ft), and walk bipedally with their arms raised for balance. They are the fastest and most agile of all tree-dwelling, non-flying mammals.

Depending on species and gender, gibbons' fur coloration varies from dark to light brown shades, and anywhere in between black and white. It is rare to see a completely white gibbon.