At home anywhere
After people, rhesus macaques live in a wider range of places than any other primate, from hot plains to snowy hills.
Asian mountains
Rhesus macaque
Macaca mulatta
A sandy-brown monkey with a bare pink face, living in big, noisy troops.
- Size
- About 50cm long, plus the tail
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- From the foothills of the Himalaya across India and China
Scampers after you on all fours. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Macaque
Good to know
Six things about the macaque
Big troops
A troop can have more than a hundred monkeys, with the females in charge of who ranks where.
Cheek pouches
It stuffs food into pouches in its cheeks to eat later, somewhere safer.
Good swimmers
Macaques swim well, and young ones dive and play in water.
Temple monkeys
Many live in towns and temples, where they are fed, and have learned to steal food and open bags.
A blood group named after them
The rhesus factor in human blood, the plus or minus in your blood group, was first found in these monkeys.
The real thing
Photos of the macaque
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
You will not need to look hard: in northern India and Nepal they sit on walls, roofs and temple steps. Keep food out of sight.
How to help
Do not feed wild monkeys. Fed monkeys become bold and get into trouble, and it is the monkeys that suffer for it.