It sounds like the guttural moaning of a hellish beast: it is in fact the mating call of an endangered monkey with a shimmering golden coat and beguiling eyes. And the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust think the roar of the howler monkey should be the ringtone on your phone. You are unlikely to miss a call.
DWCT have turned the amorous calls of some of the endangered species kept at their wildlife park in Jersey into ringtones to highlight their plight and, of course, to raise money. The ringtones, created by Jersey Tourism, cost 99p, with 59p going to DWCT.
If guttural moaning is not your thing, the whoop-whoop of the chunky mountain chicken frog is cheerful and actually sounds like a ringtone.
Others are:
• Western lowland gorilla: guaranteed to scare small children
• Red-tailed laughing thrush: does just what it says
• White-handed gibbon: sounds like a cute klaxon
• White-naped crane: get the party started!
The team at DWCT also tried to record Livingston fruit bats, red river hog and wrinkled hornbills but the creatures were too shy to make any recordable noises, or the sound quality wasn't good enough.
The crane is my favourite, but I wondered what other sounds would be good - or not. A purring tiger would be grrrreat, I think, while screaming fox cubs would be unbearable. And who in your address book is the gorilla or the laughing thrush?
