Stump-tailed Macaque

The Stump-tailed Macaque, also called the Bear Macaque, is a species of macaque found in Southern Asia. It is primarily frugivorous, with its diet mostly consisting of fruits. It eats many types of vegetation such as seeds, leaves and roots, but also hunts freshwater crabs, frogs, bird eggs and insects.

Physical characteristics

The Stump-tailed Macaque has long, thick, dark brown fur covering its body, but its face and its short tail, which measures between 32 and 69mm, are hairless. Infants are born white and darken as they mature. As they age, their bright pink or red faces darken to brown or nearly black and lose a lot of their hair. Males are much larger than females, measuring between 51.7-65cm long and weighing between 9.7-10.2kg, while females measure between 48.5-58.5cm and weigh between 7.5-9.1kg. Male Stump-tailed Macaques' canine teeth, which are important for establishing dominance within social groups, are more elongated than those of the females. Like all macaques, this species has cheek pouches to store food for short periods of time.


This Old World monkey travels quadrupedally and usually on the ground for it is not very agile in trees. It is generally found in subtropical and tropical broad leaf evergreen forests, in different elevations depending on the amount of rainfall in the area. It depends on rainforests for food and shelter and is not found in dry forests except where it ranges in the Himalayan region of India, only spending time in secondary forests if it is bordering primary tropical forests. It is distributed from North-Eastern India and Southern China into the North-West tip of West Malaysia on the Malay Peninsula. It is also found in Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and far Eastern Bangladesh. A study population was introduced to Tanaxpillo, an uninhabited island in Lake Catemaco, Veracruz, Mexico in 1974, where it ranges in semi-natural conditions. Most information on the species comes from the introduced population on Tanaxpillo and other captive settings as there have been very few long-term studies of the Stump-tailed Macaque in the wild.



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