Long-tailed Macaques

Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), also known as the crab-eating macaque or cynomolgus monkey is classified as a species of least concern according to  the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (ICUN) Red List. However, population trends do show that the population is decling (Ong & Richardson, 2008).This species was first named by Sir Stamford Raffles who is incidentally the founder of Singapore (Raffles, 1821).

The long-tailed macaque is one of the three native species of non-human primates in Singapore, the other two being the Slow Loris and the Banded Leaf Monkey (NParks, 2014). It is highly conspicuous (Sha et al., 2009a) and can be found in human settlements located near nature reserves or parks. It has an olive-brown shade of fur, a greyish coloured face, and a tail that can grow up to 56cm. Adults also have prominent white eyelids (Wild Singapore, 2009).

Here’s a video of long-tailed macaques taken at MacRitchie Park in Singapore! The epitome of ‘monkey see, monkey do’, when one monkey decided that diving into the water was a good idea of fun, the rest followed 😀 !