Japanese Macaque

The photo is taken from Google. The little observation near the end is mine own.
The Japanese Macaque (Macaca fuscata), also known as the Snow Monkey, is a native specimen of Japan, it is the most northern-living as well as the most polar-living non-human primate. In Japan, they were historically known as saru ("monkey"). Nihonzaru (Nihon "Japan" + saru) is used in modern times to distinguish from other primates.

The Japanese Macaque is diurnal, which means they spend their time during the day, and spends most of its time in forests. It lives in a variety of forest-types, including subtropical to sub-alpine, deciduous, broad leaf, and evergreen forests, as high as 1650m. It feeds on seeds, roots, buds, fruit, invertebrates, berries, leaves, eggs, fungi, bark, cereals and in rare cases even fish. It has a body length ranging from 79 to 95 cm, with a tail length of approximately 10 cm. Males weigh from 10 to 14 kg, females, around 5.5 kg.

The Japanese Macaque lives in troops of 20-100 individuals in size usually subdivided into matrilineal groups consisting of many females and several males. On average, females outnumber males by 3 to 1. The females have a rigid hierarchy with infants inheriting their mother's rank. The males tend to be transient within the troop but in Jigokudani park a line of alpha males, "chiefs", has been documented.

Females will copulate with an average of ten males during the mating season, though only about one third of the mountings will lead to ejaculation. Though pregnancies only occur during the mating season.

The Japanese Macaque is a very intelligent species. It is the only animal other than humans and raccoons that is known to wash its food before eating it. Researchers studying this species at Koshima island in Japan left sweet potatoes out on the beach for them to feed on, then witnessed one female, named Imo (Japanese for yam or potato), taking the food down to the sea to wash the sand off it. After a while, others started to copy her behavior. This trait was then passed on from generation to generation, until eventually, all except the very oldest members of the troop were washing their food and even seasoning their clean food in the sea. She was similarly the first observed balling up wheat with air pockets, throwing it into the water, and waiting for it to float back up before picking it up and eating it free from dirt. An entirely altered misaccount of this incident is the basis for the fictitious "hundredth monkey" meme.

The macaque has other unusual behaviors, including bathing together in hot springs and rolling snowballs for fun. Also in recent studies, it has been found that the Japanese Macaque can develop different accents, like humans. It was found that macaques in areas separated by only a couple hundred miles can have very different pitches in their calls, their form of communication. The Japanese Macaque has been involved in many studies concerning neuroscience and also is used in drug testing relations go on year-round.

After a gestation period of 173 days, females bear only one baby, which weighs about 500 g at birth. This macaque has an average lifespan of 30 years.

Although I'm not so sure about if it's the macaque or monkey of a different kind, but they are often the subject of Buddhist myths, such as the Monkey King for example, it's a story about the Monkey King and his adventures and travels with this monk, a pig and whatever the third creature is called, I'm not so sure, a sea creature perhaps? Anyway, in the story, the monkey had a cloud that can carry him around very fast, but the only way to get on the cloud was to jump and make a summersult. I always thought it was just a story describing the monkey's agility until I saw the actual act of a real monkey doing the same thing with one hand in a zoo!! So, I guess the author really did a great job on learning the monkey's behaviors.