“The Japanese macaque, also known as the snow monkey, is a highly intelligent species native to Japan. It is well known for its beet-red bottom and affinity for soaking in hot springs.”
In the news in NYT:
Last year, a 9-year-old female Japanese macaque in a reserve in southern Japan violently overthrew the alpha male of her troop to become its first female leader in the reserve’s 70-year history.
The macaque, named Yakei, presides over a troop of 677 monkeys in Takasakiyama Natural Zoological Garden, which was established as a reserve for monkeys in 1952. There are two troops on the island reserve, and they spend most of their time roaming the forested mountain at its center. They also make daily visits to a park at the base of the mountain, where the staff provides food. Since the reserve opened, its staff has kept tabs on the romantic and political struggles of its simian residents.
“For various reasons, I was driven out, forcibly, from Shinagawa and released in Takasakiyama, the area down south that’s famous for its monkey park. I thought at first that I could live peaceably there, but things didn’t work out that way. The other monkeys were my dear comrades, don’t get me wrong, but, having been raised in a human household, by the professor and his wife, I just couldn’t express my feelings well to them. We had little in common, and communication wasn’t easy. ‘You talk funny,’ they told me, and they sort of mocked me and bullied me. The female monkeys would giggle when they looked at me. Monkeys are extremely sensitive to the most minute differences. They found the way I acted comical, and it annoyed them, irritated them sometimes. It got harder for me to stay there, so eventually I went off on my own. Became a rogue monkey, in other words.”