| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Japanese Macaque
Data Deficient
| ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Macaca fuscata Blyth, 1875 |
The Japanese Macaque (Macaca fuscata), also known as the Snow Monkey, is a terrestrial monkey native to northern Japan. They are said to be the most northern-living non- human primate. The Japanese Macaque has gray- brown fur, a pink faceThe face is the front of the head. Parts of a face: Head Hair Forehead Eyebrow Eye Nose Cheek Mouth Lips Tooth Skin. Behavior: Facial expression. Anatomy On the front of the face a line drawn down from the supraorbital notch between the bicuspid teeth to and handAlternate meanings: Hand (disambiguation A human left hand The hand ( med. manus) is a portion of the arm or anterior limb of a human or other primate, at where the appendage terminates. This part of the limb is especially used in grasping and holding.s, and a short tailThe word tail in the English language has a number of meanings: "Tail" is often used to describe the rear end of an animal's body, especially when it forms a distinct, flexible appendage to the trunk. It is the part of the body that roughly corresponds to. They eat mainly fruitIn botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant. In cuisine, when discussing fruit as food, the term usually refers to just those plant fruits that are sweet and fleshy, examples of which would be plum, apple, and or and vegetation, but are also known to eat insectSubclass Apterygota Symphypleona globular springtails Subclass Archaeognatha (jumping bristletails) Subclass Dicondylia Monura extinct Thysanura (common bristletails) Subclass Pterygota Palaeodictyoptera extinct Ephemeroptera (mayflies) Odonata ( dragonfls and small vertebratePetromyzontidae ( lampreys) Placodermi extinct Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) Acanthodii extinct Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish) Actinistia ( coelacanths) Dipnoi ( lungfish) Amphibia ( amphibians) Reptilia ( reptiles) Aves ( birds) Mammalia ( mammals.
Japanese macaques are highly intelligent. They are the only animals other than humans that are known to wash their food before eating it. These monkeys are perhaps most famous for the amount of time they spend relaxing in hot springA warm spring or hot spring is a place where warm or hot groundwater issues from the ground on a regular basis for at least a predictable part of the year, and is significantly above the ambient ground temperature (which is usually around 55~57°F or 13~14s during the cold winter months.
They are often the subject of Buddhist myths, and are thought to be the inspiration behind the saying "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." There are two subspecies and the average lifespan is 30 years.
They have a body length ranging from 79 to 95cm, with tail length approximately 10cm. Males weigh from 10 to 14kg, females, around 5.5kg.
Japanese macaques have brown to grey fur, with a red face and bottom, and a short tail. They are native to Japan, but an introduced free-ranging population has been living in Texas since 1972. Japanese macaques live in a variety of forest-types, including subtropical to subalpine, deciduous, broadleaf and evergreen forests, below 1500m. They feed on seeds, roots, buds, fruit, invertebrates, berries, leaves, birds eggs, fungi, bark and cereals.
Japanese macaques are the most northerly-living non-human primate, living in mountainous areas of Honshu, Japan. They survive winter temperatures below -15 degrees Celsius, and keep warm in naturally heated volcanic springs.
Japanese macaques live in multi-male, multi-female groups, and on average, females outnumber males by 3.4 to 1. The females have a rigid hierarchy with infants inheriting their mother's rank. The males tend to be transient within the troop. Japanese macaques are diurnal and spend the majority of their time in the trees.
After a gestation period of 173 days, females give birth to one young, which weighs about 500g at birth.
Japanese macaques are classified as Data Deficient by the 2000 IUCN Red List.
One interesting point about these macaques is that when researchers studying these monkeys left sweet potatoes out on the beach for them to feed on, they witnessed one female taking the food down to the sea to wash the sand away. After a while, other macaques started to copy her behaviour. This trait was then passed on from generation to generation, until eventually, all except the very old members of the troop were washing their food in the sea.