Japanese Macaque

In Japan, the species is known as Nihonzaru (ニホンザル, a combination of Nihon (日本) "Japan" + saru (猿) "monkey") to distinguish it from other primates

Japanese macaques have short tails, thick brownish-gray fur, pinkish-red faces, and deeper magenta hands and feet. Their nails are whitish gray, and they have yellowish-hazel colored eyes.

Other peculiar behaviors of the macaque include playing with snowballs and taking hot spring baths together. Recent research has also revealed that Japanese macaques can acquire accents that are different from one another and from those of humans. Macaques communicate by making calls, which can have very diverse pitches in locations only a few hundred miles apart.

During the mating season, the male and female macaques establish a pair and connect. They mate, feed, rest, and move together. On average, this relationship lasts 16 days. An average of four males per season are consorts with females. Males with higher positions tend to have longer relationships than their inferiors.  They are semiterrestrial, with females spending more time in the trees and males spending more time on the ground. Macaques are known to leap. They are very good swimmers and have been reported to swim a distance of more than half a kilometer.

Additionally, higher-ranking men attempt to sabotage the relationships of lower-ranking men. Any male of any status may choose to mate with a female. However, because they are more successful at mate guarding, dominant males mate more frequently than other types of males. The decision to mate is made by the female. Furthermore, a male's dominance does not guarantee that he will mate successfully with a female. During the mating season, males can temporarily join other armies and mate with those females.

The Japanese macaque is omnivorous and eats a variety of foods. More than 213 species of plants are included in the macaque's diet. They also eat insects, bark, and soil. On Yakushima Island, fruit, mature leaves, and fallen seeds are primarily eaten. The macaque also eats fungi, ferns, invertebrates, and other parts of plants. In addition, in Yakushima, their diets vary seasonally with fruits being eaten in the summer and herbs being eaten in the winter.] Farther north, macaques mostly eat seasonal foods such as fruit and nuts to store fat for the winter, when food is scarce. On the northern island of Kinkasan, macaques mostly eat fallen seeds, herbs, young leaves, and fruits.

The macaques eventually adapted to the environment, learned to avoid predators (such as eagles, mosquitos, coyotes, rattlesnakes, wolves, pythons, jaguars, tigers, and even chimpanzees), and they learned to forage for mesquite beans, cactus fruits, and other foods.

It is rumored that macaques are aggressive toward humans and dangerous to handle, as well as nasty toward conspecifics, making them challenging to introduce to other macaques of the same species.

This species is present in Japan on Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and the islands of Awaji, Shodo, Yaku, Kinkazan (Miyagi Prefecture), Kojima (Miyazaki Prefecture) and others. It was previously found on Tane Island, where it is now extinct.

In 1972, a troop of approximately 150 Japanese macaques was relocated from Kyoto to a primate observatory in southwest Texas, United States. The observatory is an enclosed ranch-style environment and the macaques have been allowed to roam with minimal human interference. At first, many perished in the unfamiliar habitat, which consists of arid brushland. 

• Movement Pattern: Random

• Individual Type: Nomadic/Troop

• Population Trend: Stable

• Population: 2,000-3,850

• Locomotion: Terrestrial

• Habitat: Polar; tundra; taiga; montane grasslands and shrublands; temperate coniferous forests; temperate broadleaf and mixed forests; temperate deciduous forests, temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands; subtropical coniferous forests; subtropical moist broadleaf forests; subtropical dry broadleaf forests; subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands; salt plains; limestone forest; tropical coniferous forests; tropical moist broadleaf forests; tropical dry broadleaf forests; tropical grasslands; tropical savannas and shrublands; Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub; mushroom forests; deserts and xeric shrublands; badlands; flooded grasslands and savannas; swamp; riparian; wetland; mangrove forest; bamboo forest; air-breathing coral reefs

• Earth: 

  • Native (resident): Japan

At first, these guys are passive and tame and can be given any type of berry. (Any sweet berries are recommended.) Do not run up to its face.

Coming soon.

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• The first-ever drawing a primate in this century.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_macaque

• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/12552/195347803