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Thursday, August 6, 2009

Family Outing

For the first time I've been able to see and observe wild monkeys in Yangmingshan National Park behind our house: Formosa macaques (Macaca cyclopis), the only monkey species on the island. The group consisted of one boss male, an adult female, a younger male and two kids. All of them were just as curious about me as I was about them, in particular the juvies, who kept trying to intimidate me with furious branch-shaking. They often came closer to get a better look at me, but never closer than six, seven meters. Of course, the light was completely useless - I was standing on the road in the blazing midday sun, and the monkeys were sitting under the murky light of the roadside canopy. Still, a very impressive encounter - at least half an hour went by before they took their show back on the road....


2 comments:

Warren said...

Cool. I think H. sapiens is native to Taiwan as well; at least, it was present while much of the Northern Hemisphere was under ice and most modern herp species were absent. The question is one of philosophy vs. biology...

Khelljuhg said...

Nice photos! Here in Japan you can see Macaca fuscata. I have seen a large group of the monkeys on an island. By the way, M. cyclopis has been introduced to some areas of Japan.