A chunky, short-tailed monkey built for cold, steep mountains rather than steamy lowland jungle. Its fur is thick and brown, with a darker back and paler underside, and its face is very dark, sometimes almost black, framed by lighter cheek fur. One of its most distinctive features is its tail: it’s unusually short for a macaque, giving the animal a compact, almost bear-cub look when it sits hunched on a rock or tree branch.

Adults have powerful limbs and sturdy hands and feet, perfect for climbing cliffs, tree trunks and stone walls in their rugged home. When a troop moves along a mountain trail, the monkeys look stocky and solid compared with their slimmer lowland cousins, with the dark faces of big males standing out against the misty background of the Eastern Himalayas.

This species lives in high, remote parts of the Eastern Himalayas. It was first recognised in western Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India, but has since been recorded in neighbouring Bhutan and southeastern Tibet, making it a true “borderlands monkey” that crosses political lines while sticking to its cool, forested slopes. The Arunachal macaque spends its time in a mix of temperate broadleaf forest, conifer stands, bamboo thickets and farmland edges, depending on season and food.

From a scientific point of view, the Arunachal macaque is both new and puzzling. It was only described as a separate species in 2005, after years when it was known only as a strange, big, short-tailed macaque seen in photographs and mentioned in local stories. At first glance, it looks a lot like nearby Assamese and Tibetan macaques, but genetic studies suggest its closest relative might actually be the bonnet macaque from far-off southern India, with its mountain look evolving independently—a neat example of convergent evolution.

Distribution

Country

Population est.

Status

Year

Comments

Bhutan

2015

Possibly Extant

China

2015

Possibly Extant

India

2015

Arunachal Pradesh