WC is obviously biased in favor of birds, and makes no apologies for it, but from time to time will aim a camera at mammals, too. Including Old World Monkeys, our distant cousins and wildly diverse primates. WC’s Old World experience is mostly limited to Thailand, but that country offered a nice selection of species.
Macaques are monkeys of the family Cercopithecidae, the Old World Monkeys, and the genus Macaca. There are 23 recognized species of Macaques; here’s a look at the two WC has seen and photographed.
Macaques are matriarchal, with a troupe dominated by a female and her female relatives and young, pre-breeding males. This lovely lady was watching one of her troupe pilfer a tourist car with evident approval. She’s a Northern Pig-tailed Macaque, a species recently split from their Southern Pig-tailed cousins.
The macaque troupes we saw were habituated to people, including the juveniles. This kid was begging for food. He was rewarded in a surprising way, as WC has related earlier.
The Pig-tailed Macaques contrast nicely with their Long-tailed Macaque cousins.
Long-tailed Macaques are a subspecies of Crab-eating Macaques, Macaca fascicularis fascicularis, although it seems like only primatologists make the distinction. This family troupe lived at a Buddhist temple complex built around a gigantic limestone outcrop. Yes, that’s limestone they are sitting on.
The Long-tailed Macaques has been introduced on many Pacific and Indian Ocean sslands where it has wreaked ecological havoc. It’s bad enough that the Invasive Species Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the crab-eating macaque as one of the “100 of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species“. In Mauritius, for example, it is a threat for the endemic and endangered Roussea simplex, as it destroys its flowers. It also hinders germination of some endemic trees by destroying most of their fruits when unripe and competes with the endemic endangered Mauritian flying fox for native fruits. It sounds almost as bad as its human cousins.
The Colobinae or leaf-eating monkeys are from a different a subfamily of the Old World monkeys. Colobinae include some 61 species across 11 genera. WC has only seen the Dusky Langur, but if its sister species are as cute, the world is in trouble.
This species has been fairly intensively studied. In 2016, in a study population of 12,480 primates in Teluk Bahang, Malaysia, researchers found that within the eight-month study period dusky leaf monkeys spent 40% of their time positioning, 33% of their time feeding, and 20% of their day moving. The sampled primates also allocated their time allo-grooming (4%), playing (2%), and foraging (1%). This is, as the alternate common name says, a leaf-eating species, so they have a relatively low-energy life.
Sadly, all of these monkey species are in trouble. Some are vulnerable, some are near-threatened. Habitat loss, conflict with humans, cross-over of human diseases; all contribute to serious population declines.
It would be a sad world that didn’t have monkeys in it.
Wickersham's Conscience 
Thank you for this important information. Mary Jane from Montana…USA
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