The night-time hunt for the secretive urban slender loris of Bangalore

Implausibly, this elusive nocturnal animal has somehow survived in Bangalore, a mushrooming megacity of 10 million people. But a catastrophic loss of trees in what was formerly known as India's 'garden city' threatens their future

It's 7pm on a Saturday night and a park in the heart of the city is teeming with people. The pathways are crammed with jostling walkers, park benches are spilling over with couples and senior citizens. In all the bustle, a group of people carefully trail the walkway armed with torches that they shine across the park's treetops. They're looking for something. They find ant nests, a spotted owlet and bats hanging upside down - but they keep moving. They reach the end of the park's walkway and a swathe of light from a torch hits a tall tree outside the park boundary. A pair of eyes glowing in the dark stare back and begin floating in the dark. They've found what they're looking for - a small and extremely elusive furry creature - a slender loris. With wide, unblinking eyes and long, skinny limbs, these peculiar squirrel-sized primates live on trees in the forests of southern India and Sri Lanka.

But the park where the group spots the loris is far from a pristine forest. The roundabout next to it is clogged with traffic, drowned in a cacophony of horns and city noises. Bangalore, known as India's Silicon Valley, is one of the world's fastest-growing cities with a population of 10 million.