Stump-tailed macaque (Macaca arctoides)
Great place to see this macaque: Gibbon Sanctuary, India
As a part of our Kaziranga Wildlife Photography Tour, we visit Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary (or The Hoollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary) where seven primates dwell in. And if you are fortunate, the stump-tailed macaque will bring you joy by just being itself in its home. Apart from Assam, its range extends from Meghalaya to Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura.
The stump-tailed macaque is mostly frugivorous, feeding mainly on seeds, leaves and roots, but it’s also known to hunt frogs, bird eggs, insects and freshwater crabs. Its body is covered by thick, long dark brown fur but its face and short tail are hairless. Like all species of macaques, this one, too, has cheek pouches to store food for short durations of time.
This Old World monkey is not very agile in trees; it travels usually on the ground, quadrupedally. It usually dwells in subtropical and tropical broadleaf evergreen forests. It is known to live in different elevations depending on the amount of rainfall in the area.
The thick fur of the stump-tailed macaque enables it to live in cold climates, up to even 4,000 metres, which is why, it is our Animal of the Week!
See this amazing primate on our Wildlife Photo Tour to Kaziranga, Gibbon and Nameri.