Slow lorises are a group of several
species of
nocturnal strepsirrhine primates which make up the
genus Nycticebus. Found in
Southeast Asia and bordering areas, they range from
Bangladesh and
Northeast India in the west to the
Sulu Archipelago in the
Philippines in the east, and from
Yunnan province in China in the north to the island of
Java in the south. Although many previous classifications recognized as few as a single all-inclusive species, there are now at least eight that are considered valid: the
Sunda slow loris (
N. coucang),
Bengal slow loris (
N. bengalensis),
pygmy slow loris (
N. pygmaeus),
Javan slow loris (
N. javanicus),
Bornean slow loris (
N. menagensis),
N. bancanus,
N. borneanus, and
N. kayan. The group's closest relatives are the
slender lorises of southern India and Sri Lanka. Their next closest relatives are the African
lorisids, the
pottos,
false pottos, and
angwantibos. They are less closely related to the remaining
lorisoids (the various types of
galago), and more distantly to the
lemurs of
Madagascar. Their evolutionary history is uncertain since their
fossil record is patchy and
molecular clock studies have given inconsistent results.